Spellbound
by Rydia Erdrick Landale
Summary: Avalon...eternal home of the Third Race. But now the Summer Country is in grave danger, and it's up to an unlikely team of heroes (and villians) to save it!
1. Isolation

**"Spellbound"**

A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!)

SPOILER WARNING! Well, actually, it's not much of a spoiler at this point, since the "secrets" I reveal in this story are spilled openly all over the place on just about every single Gargoyles site that exists. (And every miscellaneous-animation site that has a section about Gargoyles.) But if you have just gotten into the show and have also avoided going to any sites about it so far...if you are one of the maybe, what...6 Gargoyles fans in the universe who don't know all the secrets and surprises yet, then SPOILER WARNING for up through "The Gathering". If you have not seen that far or been to any sites about the show, then turn back now. The rest of you...go ahead.

_Note: This story is kind of a "what-if" that takes place sometime in the earlier second season, between "Vows" and "Outfoxed", though I fudged the exact calendar dates. At that point, I am also not quite sure who had which magical artifacts, so I gave them to the characters who it would be most useful to me for them to have them. Heh.  
I haven't read that much "Gargoyles" fanfic, so maybe plotlines like this one have already been done many times. I don't know. But if I copied your idea, keep in mind that it wasn't on purpose. I came up with this myself.  
Enjoy!_

Chapter One: Isolation 

It was a beautiful night on Avalon, but that was nothing unusual since the weather was always beautiful there. Princess Katherine sighed and looked out the window at the clear night sky, which was starting to fade towards shades of grey and blue at the horizon as it was nearly dawn. Every day, every night, always the same. _It'd be nice to have some rain sometime_, she thought to herself ruefully. _Even snow. Something...different, something to show that time was passing, that this is real and not a dream..._  
But of course, it wasn't quite..."real", as she well knew. Time was passing, but much, much slower than it would be back in the mortal realm. Katherine knew this very well, too. After all, she may have been an old lady with pure white hair, but she still looked pretty good for someone who was over a thousand years old.  
She looked around the currently empty room of the castle. Angela had gone out to gather fruit, Gabriel was fishing, and Tom was teaching the other Gargoyles some sword-fighting techniques, for something to do. _Not as if anybody could attack us here,_ thought Katherine. _Nobody would dare. And if they did, the magic of this place wouldn't let them get very far._ The Magus...well, he had avoided her company for a very long time now. She sighed again. She had never meant to hurt him, but...no. No point in thinking about might-have beens. You couldn't go back and take the other road...  
Her reverie was broken abruptly as Gabriel came rushing into the room, crude fishing-pole still in his taloned hand, looking very alarmed. "Princess!" he called out. "Come outside! Something is very wrong!" The other Gargoyles were hot on his heels.  
Grateful for something else to think about, something new happening (even if it was bad), Katherine rushed outside with the others. She saw instantly what it was--there was a great roiling fog over the ocean. Not the soft, thin mists there usually were, but a dark, ominous cloud. It almost seemed to be sucking the life out of the air. Katherine tried to walk to the shore and look at it more closely, but found that her courage and strength failed about ten feet away. She gasped, trying to get enough air into her lungs.  
Somebody else had made it to the shore, however. The Magus stood atop the cliffs, his long white hair and robes whipping fiercely in the winds--storm winds, winds of the bad weather that never came to Avalon--and pointed with his wooden staff down at the ocean. Since this was obviously a disturbance caused by magic, his professional curiosity had won out over the sickening fear everybody was feeling. "What IS it?" he cried out, although he didn't expect an answer. "What's going on? It has to be some kind of dark sorcery...but it's unlike anything I've ever encountered!"  
The Wyrd Sisters, who were standing atop the cliff alongside him in their post as Guardians, didn't seem to know what it was either...but they did know they didn't like it much. They moaned and wailed like a trio of banshees, their eerily blank blue eyes wide with fear.  
"The Mists of Avalon..." said Luna, with frightened awe in her voice.  
"Changing to thick, choking fog..." continued Phoebe, in the same tone.  
"Cutting us off from the world..." prophesied Selene.  
"IT IS THE END OF EVERYTHING!" they cried out in unison.  
"Let's go back to the castle and discuss this!" yelled the Magus. The three witches turned, startled, seeing him there for the first time. They had only been back on the island for a few hours and had not yet gotte around to kicking the mortal interlopers off--but this was no time to worry about playing Guardian; they all had a much more serious problem. After thinking for a moment, they nodded towards the human man and turned back towards the castle. The other watchers couldn't agree more with the wizard's suggestion, as well.  
Katherine took one last look over her shoulder at the shoreline. Oddly enough, the strange fog didn't seem to be "invading" the island...it stopped where the water met the land. There were great gusts of wind at the shore...but no further in, as if they were being held back by something--for now. But what--or who--would DO something like this?  
And more importantly...how?

DECEMBER 16TH, 1995  
8:45 am 

Grey light filtered softly through the tall, arched windows of a once-elegant, now dilapidated mansion in the outskirts of New York City. Through the frosted glass, a vague figure could be seen sitting in an overstuffed leather chair, turning the pages of an old book. From a moderate distance, the scene would have looked normal enough--but very few people would care to get really close to this mansion. Although it looked innocent enough from the outside, strange rumours surrounded the place.  
The mansion's sole occupant didn't wonder about the rumours. She knew the truth--that there was, indeed, something dangerous living here, and it was her. Demona put down the book she had been reading and stretched as she stood up, flexing her batlike wings as well. It was almost sunrise--she just knew, without looking out the window or at a clock. All Gargoyles had a sense about this; it was a surival instinct--one last warning to find a safe place to roost for the day before it was too late. Demona, of course, thanks to that annoying--albeit useful--spell Puck had cast on her, didn't have to worry about it anymore. Still, she had made a habit out of watching the sun rise every day, standing in a window to feel the warmth of its rays as it first slipped over the horizon...just because it was something no other Gargoyle could do. Pacing across the floor, her talons clicking on the tile, the reptillian-looking woman threw back the curtains, ran a clawed blue hand through her wild dark red hair, and waited.  
The sun slowly started to come up, its golden rays spilling across the land, chasing the shadows back. The light travelled further and further up the side of her house, until it flooded in through the second-story windows. Demona braced for the agonising pain that always accompanied her transformations...but instead, felt nothing but a...numbness at her feet...a strangely FAMILIAR numbness...  
Shocked, Demona looked down. Instead of turning soft, smaller, weak and pink, with pathetic little nails in place of strong sharp claws, her feet were turning...grey? And she couldn't move them anymore, either. The grey colour crept up her legs, and she realised what the numb feeling meant...she was turning to stone!  
"NOOOO!" she shrieked, yanking the velvet curtains closed--as if that would somehow stop the stone sleep. "This isn't supposed to HAPPEN anymore! Unless Puck removed the..."  
Her last thought, before the stone finished creeping up over her head and put her into hibernation for the day, was that she was going to drag the little imp out of that worthless mirror again...and this time, make him do the spell RIGHT.

1:05 PM 

"And so you see, ladies and gentlemen", concluded David Xanatos as he pointed to the chart on the wall, "if we cut back on production of the new custom-designed computers, we'll increase demand, be able to raise prices, and have a higher profit this quarter for our electronics division. Any questions?"  
The business executives looked at each other, shrugged, and said nothing.  
"Okay, I'll take that as a 'no'." said Xanatos with a wry little smile. "On to the next part of our agenda..."  
Owen Burnett looked around the small conference room, where Xanatos was currently holding a meeting with the top members of his business staff...and Owen too, of course. Owen went everywhere, heard everything--it was one of the reasons he was so valuable.  
It was a pretty boring meeting, however, and the tall blonde man had to stifle a yawn. Some of the "divisions" that were being discussed today weren't exactly within the letter of the law--hence Xanatos was holding the meeting in this small, somewhat stuffy room instead of the main conference room--the big one, the one he showed to guests and the media.  
Despite that fact, nothing all that interesting was being said about the...less legal businesses today. In fact, the normal ones seemed more interesting, at this point.  
Owen sat up a little straighter (if that were possible) and went to push his glasses up his nose...when all of a sudden, he felt tired...so very, very tired...and strangely dizzy. The long, polished wooden table, the chairs full of people, the cream-coloured brick walls...all of it started to whirl, twist in front of his eyes. _I don't know what's going on,_ he thought, _but I have a feeling it would be a good idea to get away from all these other eyes...soon!_  
Keeping his voice as composed as he could, he cleared his throat and said, "Mr. Xanatos, ladies and gentlemen, may I please be excused for a moment? I...think something I ate for lunch is disagreeing with me."  
"Of course," said Xanatos, graciously. After all, Owen already knew full well what was going to be covered at this meeting...he had been briefed ahead of time. The main reason he was there was to watch the reactions of the other staff members. That, and because people would expect to see him there.  
"Poor guy," whispered the Head of Marketing under her breath, to the Head of Personnel, sitting next to her. "It hits you like that, sometimes."  
Owen stood up slowly, pushed his chair back under the table, and left as quickly as dignity would allow him to--but the second he was out of the room, he took a surreptitious look around to make sure nobody else was in sight, then RAN for it.

Frantic, Owen dashed into the nearest bathroom--he needed someplace with a lockable door. He stood over the sink, grasped the cold white porcelain on either side, leaning on the fixture for support, and looked at his face in the mirror. It wasn't very far along yet, thank goodness. Normally, this was quick, easy. But this time, because it was happening against his will, it felt disturbing, almost painful. Owen took a deep, shuddering breath, forced himself to relax, and stopped fighting it.  
He shrank several inches. His hair bleached from yellow-blonde to silver white and grew--making his scalp itch like crazy for a moment--until it was down to his waist in back. His body became more slender and small-boned, with narrower shoulders. The features became more delicate--the cheekbones higher, the jaw narrower, the nose smaller and upturned, and the eyes darkened from pale blue to dark brown while becoming distinctively slanted. Last but not least, the ears grew much longer, tapering to sharp points above the top of his head.  
When it was finished, Puck raised his head to look at himself in the mirror. Or rather, tried to--his vision was blurry. At first he took this as yet another sign of whatever strange illness he was coming down with (_immortals aren't SUPPOSED to get ill!_)...but then he realised he was still wearing Owen's glasses. His natural form had perfect eyesight, so they were more of a hindrance than a help. Carefully, he removed the spectacles and put them on the counter. Since he hadn't done this Change himself--and therefore hadn't been concentrating on what clothes he wanted as well as the new body, he was still wearing Owen's suit, which sagged and bunched on his smaller, elvish frame. _Well, it could be worse,_ he mused wryly. _If I hadn't gone and bought "Owen" all those suits from a store instead of just magicking them on every morning, I'd be rather chilly right now..._ but he quickly shook that aside to concentrate on the real issue.  
_What in the name of the Mother of Creation is going ON here?!_ he wondered in stunned disbelief. _I've never lost control of a disguise like this before! Heck, I can do this kind of spell in my sleep...and have, many times! I've even been knocked unconscious as "Owen" and still looked normal as ever when I woke up. What the...did something suddenly suppress my powers? Was the person sitting next to me wearing iron jewelry or something? No, can't be that, iron doesn't affect our kind that strongly, unless it's in large amounts..._  
He tried a different spell. Muttering as quietly as possible to minimise the chance that somebody walking past the bathroom door might hear him, he chanted:  
"Friendly little spark of light,  
Come and chase away the night!"  
This spell was used to summon up a small green ball of imitation flame on the tip of the finger, for use as a portable source of light. A very simple cantrip, the kind that Third Race children learned how to do when they were still learning to walk.  
Nothing happened.  
Growing a bit more worried, he tried another simple spell--floating. He did this one all the time, when he looked like himself. He much preferred floating to walking on the ground, walking was so...excuse the pun...pedestrian. Besides, flitting lightly from place to place gave him a whimsical, frivolous air that made people underestimate his true power...which was exactly what he wanted.  
"As the bird soars in the sky,  
So I leave this Earth and fly!"  
His feet failed to part with the floor.  
Now truly alarmed, Puck attempted a real spell--a teleport. He would just put himself into the next room down the hall, which had been empty last time he saw it. Nothing difficult. Just a small hop.  
"Spirits of time and space and air,  
Take me now from here to there!"  
This time, not only did the spell fizzle, but the effort made him stagger and see spots flashing before his eyes. Puck's last thought before he collapsed on the floor was that he couldn't believe this was happening. Fair Folk didn't get sick, and they certainly didn't pass ou--

"Owen?" called a voice outside the door, in that low tone which said that the speaker knew the person they were addressing was in a private room and would rather not be disturbed, but the speaker still wanted to be heard, nonetheless. The voice was followed by a few tenative knocks. "Owen? You all right in there?"  
Muzzily, Puck opened his eyes and wondered, again, why he couldn't see that well, until he realised that he was lying face-down and that the substance in front of his face was linoleum, not air. He groaned as he sat up and tried to identify the voice. Female voice, familar...Fox. Yes. His thoughts were ticking over more easily now that he was coming closer to full consciousness. He called through the door, "Yes, Mrs. Xanatos, it's me. I'm...I'll be all right."  
"What? Is that you, Owen? You sound...different..." Fox seemed confused.  
_Drat!_ thought Puck. He had forgotten that the disguise spell changed his voice as well as his appearance. And he had no practice in changing his voice by human means--after all, why should he? He never had to before! He wasn't sure if Xanatos had told her yet, but just in case... "Yes, it's me", he reassured her, trying to figure out how to make his vocal chords copy Owen's voice, as well as he could. He also added some scratchiness, both to hide the fact that he sounded different and to make it seem as if he was coming down with a cold. "I'm fine, I assure you."  
"You sure you don't want me to call a doctor? David's getting worried--you've been in there for over an hour, not making a sound."  
_Was I out that long?_ "No, it's nothing serious. Thank you for your concern."  
"Okay..." Fox still sounded unconvinced, but after a moment Puck heard high-heeled footsteps moving away from the door. When they were out of range of his hearing--which was still far more sensitive than that of a human even without magic--Puck breathed a sigh of relief. He then continued trying to figure out what the problem was.  
Problem? His magic was drained. Solution? That would be a bit harder, especially since he didn't even know what the cause of the problem was. Aside from the simple, easy disguise spell--and the low-level defensive charms that were so automatic he didn't even think about them anymore--he hadn't even been using his powers today. But he had never been this drained before...not after those practice excercises Oberon had forced him to do as a child, not during the Fomorii Wars...or even that recent experience when that humourless harridan of a female Gargoyle had dragged him out of Titania's Mirror and made him do all those spells. Then the Manhattan Clan and some human woman had demanded he change everything back, which meant ANOTHER major spell. Some of the spells not only changed everybody on the island to another species--but also rearranged their attitudes about what was "normal" or not--they were both subtle and detailed as well as powerful. Puck was rather proud of whipping off such complex magic on the fly, even if he did say so himself. And at the end of that night, he had felt only a little bit sleepy.  
Today, trying to teleport just a few yards to the left had knocked him flatter than a drunken goblin.  
He wasn't panicking yet--after all, he knew that rest would regenerate his magical energy right along with the physical--well, that is, under normal circumstances...but he never got drained like this without using his powers. A lot. It was like something had sucked the energy right out of him...  
Or shut off its source.  
Puck suddenly noticed what had been feeling so odd and...wrong for the last hour or so...his mental connection to Avalon--the warm, comforting presence in the back of the mind that all Children of Oberon had at all times...was gone! The Fay drew their power from this link when casting spells, unless they thought to "stockpile" some magical energy inside themselves as a reserve. He hadn't thought to do that for a while...and now that the link was severed, he felt adrift...alone...  
"It's almost as if Avalon has been completely cut off from the rest of the world..." he said to himself, pacing back and forth in the tiny room--as well as he could, considering that the hems of Owen's pants had fallen down over the too-large shoes and kept almost tripping him. "Or maybe it cut itself off, sensing some kind of danger. Maybe the danger is so great that it had to draw power from each of us, its children, in order to fight it. But WHAT could it be? Avalon is the eternal Summer Country, the most powerful place there is...what in this world or any other could pose a real threat to it?"  
With a sense of disbelief, he found himself suddenly needing to go there, to a place he normally avoided it whenever possible. But now things were different. Sure, the realm of the Fair Folk was boring, but it had always been there for him, before. He'd never before had to confront the idea that someday...it wouldn't...  
For the first time in centuries, Puck felt painfully homesick.  
But how to get there, without any magic of his own? The only other way was to go by boat, but somebody on Avalon would have to come and get him...and why would they? Besides, he had the feeling that the current citizens of Avalon--whoever they were--couldn't get out, any more than outsiders could get in.  
Sure, his power would regenerate if he slept (he hoped) but it was the middle of the day, not exactly time for sleep yet...and even though he had earned up tons of time off, Owen never went home early. It was against the persona Puck had developed over the years. Owen was punctual, polite, efficient at all times, always followed orders right to the letter, never asked for time off, never got sick, never made personal phone calls on company time...the perfect employee. People would talk if he took a half-day.  
But it wasn't the damage to his reputation Puck was worried about--how was he going to even live his life, now? Without his powers, ANY of them, he was as weak as--no, weaker than!--a mere mortal. After all, mortals spent their entire brief-but-intense lives learning how to do things by practical, physical means. And if they couldn't do it themselves, they would invent a machine to do it for them, sooner or later. (Puck had always had a healthy respect for human inventiveness, though he'd be a laughingstock if he admitted it to the other Fay.) He had had years' worth of experience "playing" mortal, as Owen, more practice than most Fair Folk ever got (at one stretch, anyway) but that still wasn't much against millenias'-worth of experience being immortal. And the whole time when he was "Owen" before, he knew he wasn't REALLY human...that he still had his powers to fall back on. He was never truly vulnerable.  
Now, he was.  
And he had no idea how long it would last.  
Still, he had to go back out there and finish the day's work, in order to keep in character--but he could hardly serve Xanatos looking like THIS...  
Almost as if thinking his name had summoned the man, Xanatos's voice called from outside the bathroom door. "Owen? You still in there?"  
_Well...yes and no,_ thought Puck. Aloud, he said, "Yes, I'm still in here."  
Xanatos paused for a moment...possibly because of the voice, which Puck wasn't even trying to disguise anymore. "Fox said you've been in here for a whole hour...can I come in?"  
"Are you alone out there?" came the reply.  
"Yeessss...." said Xanatos slowly, somewhat mystified. "There's nobody else in the hallway."  
"Come in and shut the door behind you."  
Xanatos opened the door, taking in the scene quickly. There were many things he could have said, but the only reaction he showed was a slight widening of the eyes and a quiet "Ah..."

1:10 PM 

Far away, in the Australian offices of Cyberbiotics, Anastasia Renard paced back and forth, her lab coat flying around behind her. She went from the test tube she was studying to the computer that was analysing the substance inside it, and back again. The Matrix substance would take some more work before it was ready for implementation--months, she estimated--but that was well within scheduled parameters. The other scientists went about their business efficiently, the clicking of computer keyboards the only sound in the room other than Anastasia's footsteps. The handsome middle-aged woman smiled, and pushed back a lock of her auburn hair.  
Her...wait, it wasn't supposed to be that long...  
Elizondo, one of the lower-ranking technicians, walked up to hand her a clipboard with his report on it, and stopped suddenly, staring. "Uh...Ms. Renard? You feeling all right? You're looking kind of...green..."  
Startled, Anastasia looked down at her hand. Sure enough, it was turning green. And she didn't feel good, not at all. "You may be right," she said, as calmly as possible. "I am...not quite myself today. Excuse me for a moment."  
_Actually, the problem is, I'm far too "myself" today!_ she thought ironically as she dashed through the corridors of Cyberbiotics as quickly as these infernal high heels would allow her to. It was one aspect of modern fashion she'd never get used to. _What is going on...?_  
By the time she finally reached her private office and closed the door (_thank goodness it's Saturday and working today is optional,_ she thought), the Change was nearly complete. Mystified, Titania watched in the reflection of a compact mirror as her reddish hair finished lengthening, brushed it back from her pointed mint-green ears, and wondered what could possibly be causing this...  
Another problem was that, since she couldn't change back (and she already knew she couldn't, without testing it)...she'd be stuck here for several hours. Because none of the mortals around here knew what she really was, and she wished to keep it that way. She had nobody to turn to, to ask for help sneaking her out of here.  
_So, it comes to this..._ Titania thought wryly, as she sat down in the black leather chair, kicked off the hated shoes, and put her feet up on the desk. _The Queen of Avalon, forced to spend the day hiding out from mere mortals, in a tiny little box of a room. Oh, how the mighty have fallen._  
After a few minutes of sitting there doing nothing, she wondered if that secretary had left her portable game system in the desk again. 

Princess Katherine looked out the window of the castle's kitchen for a moment, then shuddered, pulling the curtain closed quickly. She couldn't stand to look outside, at that...better to look indoors only, even though this room, like all the others in this magical castle, had eerie, soft lighting that came from nowhere at all. That was a piece of strangeness she had gotten used to by now, but what was happening to the landscape outside...  
The Gargoyles--or rather, the "Eggs" as she still insisted upon calling them--had gone outside to roost on the castle parapets as they always did, claiming that they were tougher; that if extremes of temperature had less effect on them than on humans, then they had less to worry about from strange magic as well. Katherine hoped they were right. Still, she did worry about them.  
Tom walked in and sat down on the grandly carved wooden chair next to hers. "Aye, your Highness, 'tis a dread thing indeed." He peered out the window himself, at the air that wavered as if seen through a heat-haze, yet the air was cold and getting colder. The wavering effect made the landscape itself seem to be...warped, rippling...it hurt the brain to look at. "I know not what this portends, but nothing good, I'll wager."  
The Magus looked at the roiling, twisting view with a critical eye, as if he could take the problem apart and see inside, simply by looking at it hard enough. "I feel...I feel that something odd is happening to the magic of Avalon itself..." he mused, looking upwards with a sharp, searching expression--almost like a dog sniffing the air. "Sisters," he addressed the Wyrd Sisters, who, though they did not like the humans much, thought it best to stay inside the magically-protected castle as well, "do you feel it? A prickling under the skin..."  
"Yes, we feel it," replied Luna.  
"We are surprised that you do as well, human." said Phoebe.  
"Working magic would be unwise here, now." finished Selene.  
The Magus thought about trying a small spell, calling upon the power of Avalon itself for it, what the island was like right now, quickly decided against it. He sat down at the table and joined the others in pretending to eat an early breakfast.

Puck had caught the billionaire up on the situation and was quickly spirited to one of the mansion's bedrooms in order to find something for a disguise, the two travelling down lesser-used corridors to avoid attention. He looked down at himself in a full-length mirror and turned around once to get the full effect of his new outfit. It was a kelly-green blazer, white cashmere turtleneck, and matching green silk dress-slacks. It fit him...not perfectly, but much better than Owen's suit. The sleeves and pants were slightly too long, but not enough to be encumbering, and the width and proportions were much better suited to his small frame. "Hmm, not bad..." he mused, studying himself. "All this green makes me look a bit like a leprechaun, but hey, some of my best drinking buddies are leprechauns..."  
"Glad to hear you approve," said Xanatos with a little twinkle in his eye, obviously enjoying some private joke.  
"Why no shoes, though?" Puck didn't want to walk barefoot around wintertime Manhattan, in the snow. Now that he had no magic, he had to put up with all the things mortals did, and that meant extremes of temperature could hurt him--among many other things. _I suppose I'll have to eat regularly, too. Just great. I mean, eating is fun sometimes as a diversion, but to make it a necessity..._  
Xanatos smirked before answering. "Well, I could have brought you the matching shoes...but they need to be repaired, and this is an old suit Fox doesn't like anymore, so she's never bothered."  
_Ah. So that's how he happened to already have an outfit almost my size around the place,_ Aloud, he said, in an imitation of Owen's formal tones: "Ah. A wise decision, sir. I never did look good in heels." Puck was rewarded with a mild chuckle.  
"I own a small shoe store downtown, though, as you know of course..." Xanatos inclined his head towards the person he was still trying to think of as his assistant, no matter how different he looked at the moment. "I'll phone in an order and they'll send me a pair that will fit you--free, of course--within a few hours. You're a, what, size 8...?"  
"Thanks." Puck paced nervously back and forth across the deep-pile carpet. "I hate to wait that long, however."  
"Well, as I understand it, all the Children of Oberon lost their powers at around the same time, early this afternoon, right?"  
"The time may not be simultaneous; after all, Avalon has its own time-stream, seperate from that of the mortal realm. But I assume that what happened to me will, sooner or later, happen to all, yes. After all, there's no reason why only my powers should be lost; I haven't been doing anything unusual--for me--lately. Also, I surmise that any spells created by Fay magic that were running at the time would have been cancelled as well."  
"But as you figure it, everything will turn back on again as if it was never interrupted once the magic comes back, right?"  
"Right..." Puck was starting to lose patience with this conversation. He wished Xanatos would just spit out what he was thinking of already. _How can humans waste so much time not saying things, when their lives are so short already?_ he wondered. It made no sense.  
"If the spells have already all been broken and there's nothing we can do to prevent that, it doesn't matter when we go to Avalon. Besides, if we travel there the right way....time won't be a problem."  
"The Phoenix Gate!" said Puck, understanding. "Since it can supposedly teleport people to ANY place and time...I guess it could also take us to a place outside normal space and time. However, I thought the Gargoyles have the Gate now?"  
"Yes..." said Xanatos, smiling. "But fortunately, I know their weakness, the one thing that can be almost counted on to draw them here--their mistrust of me. All I have to do...is pretend to be involved in a crime, and 'let' just enough about it leak out to pique Detective Maza's interest..."  
"And where she goes, Goliath tends to go." Puck nodded. At the same time, he was trying not to snicker. _PRETEND to be involved in a crime?_ "But how do you intend to get Goliath to give us the Gate?"  
"Simple." said Xanatos. "I don't. They're coming with us. After all, we might need all the help we can get. And besides Elisa, who is used to dealing with magic by now, and Gargoyles, who are also non-human, I can't think of anybody else among my closest acquaintances who might be willing to help the Fay...or who I can even tell the problem to without being thought a madman."  
"Hmmm..." thought Puck, putting a hand to his chin. "I hope they do agree to work with us. They don't have much love for you, the Third Race in general...or me, specifically, come to think of it."  
"They will," said Xanatos, confidently. "Elisa and Goliath are far too altruistic to be able to turn down the call to help save an entire race, even if it is one they don't get along with. And as for you..."  
"I'll just dazzle them with my winning personality!" Puck flashed a quick, cynical grin in mockery of his usual manner and flitted through a few little dance steps. Then, in a more serious tone, "Still, turning people into another species on a whim and almost killing them with their own weapons is the kind of thing that can come back to haunt a guy..."


	2. Departure

**"Spellbound"**

A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!) 

Rated: G. Spoiler warnings for up through "The Gathering" 

Chapter Two: Departure 

The sun slipped down over the horizon, the sky shading from gold and red at the bottom to purples at the top, and somewhere in Destine Manor, cracks began to appear on a statue. Screeching like an angry wildcat, Demona stretched and broke free of the stone skin, her eyes glowing red for a moment. Then she shook her head in order to get her bearings. It had been a while since she had woken up that way...  
"That annoying little imp!" she muttered to herself. "I'll summon him again, and this time, make him cast a spell so that I stay as myself, a Gargoyle, during the day, but not stone...or else!" Snarling, she stalked through the empty, echoing house until she reached a room that would have been thought ostentatious even for a mansion--the main feature was a chair that could only be called a throne, with a narrow, intricately-patterned carpet leading up to it. Across the room from the throne was a tall, thin shape under a covering cloth.  
Demona slowed as she approached it. She would never admit it out loud to anybody, but this thing gave her--just slightly, mind you--what the humans would refer to as "the creeps". After the incident with Puck, when she first found out HOW, exactly, he had made it so she would no longer turn to stone during the day, she had brought both fists down on the mirror's glass and shattered it in a fit of rage. She knew she had broken it--there was the shattered glass all over the floor (and the bleeding rivulets in her hands--hands that were much weaker and softer than she was used to)--to prove it. She had then shoved the empty frame back into a corner to get it out of her way, and spent the better part of the next hour cursing Puck, her injured hands, and Fate in general before finally storming off to get some breakfast.  
When she came back into the room with her coffee...the mirror was whole again, the shards of glass had all disappeared. Only the bandages on her hands and the lingering pain of her injury told Demona that the past hour had even happened at all. At the time, she remembered thinking that this would explain how something made of mere glass was able to survive so many centuries...but she mainly remembered deciding that the den would be a much better place to eat breakfast, instead.  
Demona approached Titania's Mirror again now, mentally scolded herself for being weak, and yanked the covering cloth off in one rough gesture. After she had gotten over her unease at the way it magically healed itself, she had obtained two new chains of iron...just in case she ever decided to summon that obnoxious trickster again. One was wrapped around the mirror and secured with a heavy iron padlock, the other draped loosely over the top. She took the spare chain and tied it into a sort of lasso, flinging it back over her shoulder--she wasn't going to take any chances this time. Then she walked over to a nearby shelf, took a silver bell, small gold hoop, and white feather and walked back over to the mirror. Facing it, she struck the hoop against the bell four times and pronounced the incantation:  
"Cum aescerat argentum  
et aurum involare,"  
Here Demona placed the feather on the palm of her hand and blew it towards the mirror. It should have slipped into it as if the mirror's surface had become a liquid pool of silver, but instead bounced gently away and floated to the floor. Demona broke off for a moment at this, wondering what she had done wrong, but decided to finish the spell anyway.  
"Postea Puck ad speculum  
Titania penetrare!"  
Nothing happened.  
Taken aback, Demona tried it again, this time making absolutely sure she did everything exactly right.  
Still, nothing happened.  
Now quite frustrated, Demona walked over to the mirror, tenatively reached out a hand to touch it--expecting her hand to pass into some kind of vortex--and felt only smooth glass. "What?!" she cried, completely mystified. "Have I somehow been robbed, the mirror replaced with a fake? But who would--"  
Several ideas flickered through her mind, but she settled quickly on one--a human who had pretended to be working at her side once, then of course turned out to be lying...and who was also known to be interested in collecting magic artifacts. "XANATOS!"  
With the chain still over her shoulder, Demona rushed through the mansion to the nearest outside window, climbed out of it and onto the roof, spread her wings, and leapt out into the night.

"Ah, here's our first guest now!" said Xanatos, as he stood atop one of the towers of what was once Castle Wyvern, his trench-coat blowing about in the wind. Puck stood off to the side, behind a low wall--even though it was night and they were alone on the highest rooftop in the city, he still felt nervous about being seen in his real form. "It's like I told you, Owe--er...."  
"Better call me Puck, sir." came the fay's voice from out of the shadows. The slender humanoid rubbed his elbows and shivered, wishing the flimsy silk blazer was better protection against the elements.  
"Sorry. Force of habit. It's like I told you...Puck, we might need all the help we can get." The dall, dark-haired businessman smiled confidently as he watched the gargoyle figure approach the tower. He knew that Goliath would come here...after all, he had sent word to one of his many contacts on the street to send word to the police that he, Xanatos was trying to illegally hack into Cyberbiotics' computers and steal some of their information. This kind of thing was sure to bring Detective Maza to the tower--and where she went, Goliath usually tended to follow. They seemed to have made it their personal life goal to catch him in something big and have him sent away for good. Of course, he could just call Maza over a secured line, explain the problem, and ASK for her to bring the Gargoyles and the Gate...but what would be the fun in that?  
Xanatos peered into the darkness, having a hard time seeing the figure against the faint starlight, and it was a new moon...was the gargoyle carrying a human or not? He couldn't tell.  
The wind picked up, blowing snow into their faces in vicious gusts...and when the two could see again, the silhouette had already landed on the roof. Two eyes flared red as the Gargoyle caught side of a familliar small figure with white hair...and before either of the two men knew what was happening, Demona POUNCED on top of the fay and pinned him against a snow-flecked stone battlement, snarling.  
"Demona!" cried Xanatos, showing actual surprise, which was rare for him. "You're hardly the Gargoyle I was expecting..." _But she might still be useful..._ he mused, the wheels turning in his mind.  
"Silence, human wretch!" hissed Demona, her fangs mere inches from Puck's throat. "My business is only with THIS one!" She yanked Puck into the air by the collar of his shirt with one hand and shook the elf like a rag doll. "I came here thinking to reclaim my stolen mirror, Xanatos, but I see that its servant is here already. So I'll just take him and go!"  
"Wait, wait..." said Xanatos, walking over to the Gargoyle woman and spreading his hands placatingly. "What do you mean, stolen mirror? I have never gone near Titania's Mirror. Honest." _Why SHOULD I?_, he thought, wryly. _What need do I have of an artifact that summons Puck? After all, I see him every day. Well, not SEE him exactly, but..._  
_And it was never YOUR mirror anyway, it belongs to Titania._ thought Puck, but, considering his current circumstances, considered it unwise to say such things aloud. Besides, he didn't know if he could talk, seeing as how it was getting so hard to breathe...  
"Lies!" roared Demona, dropping Puck and rounding on the human. "My mirror has magical powers, to summon"--she pointed at the fay--"that puny one. The mirror I have in my house now looks exactly the same, but has no powers at all! You are always trying to collect magic artifacts, YOU must have switched them!"  
"I assure you, I have never been to your home." said Xanatos.  
"Prove it, then!" said Demona, tossing back her mane of hair with a haughty gesture. "If it is the same mirror, you get the spell to work! Come to my mansion and show me!"  
"It won't work." said Puck, standing up and massaging his sore throat. "The mirror is authentic but its magic is...broken, now. The same goes for your spell. Even if I wanted to restore it, I can't. Not right now."  
"Broken?" said Demona, skeptically. "I never said the counterspell to the mirror. I don't even know it."  
"No, that's not what I mean. Magic all over the world is...suffering, now. I'd be willing to tell you all about it..." _or as much as I think it's SAFE to tell you_ "...inside?" He gestured to the door that led into the tower.  
With bad grace, Demona stalked past him through the door, Xanatos following after her, and Puck went last to close the door after them, as a good retainer should. Of course, he was kind of on a...forced vacation at the moment, but--as Xanatos had noted just a moment ago--old habits died hard.

Inside, the two men shook off the snow that had accumulated on their hair and clothes as best they could, shivering, and Xanatos walked over to the nearest thermostat to turn up the heat a bit. _It looks nice and impressive to own a castle,_ he thought, _but it does mean one heck of a heating bill. Fortunately, I can afford it._  
Demona just sniffed at their weakness and flicked her tail back and forth with impatience, waiting for Xanatos to get on with it. After all, the sooner she heard whatever lies he was about to spin, the sooner she could claim Puck and go home.  
This part of the castle had been made into a bit of a living area, with fancy rugs, bookcases, and a wooden table and chairs of old-fashioned design. It was still obviously a huge, drafty, cold stone room, but some effort had been made by the original inhabitants to make it cheery and Xanatos had kept the medieval decor scheme intact as well as he could--aside from the obvious modernizations such as electricity and heating systems. Puck noticed a tray with a silver teapot and three cups on the table, obviously brought up by another servant, and poured some for each of them. He was feeling strangely...dizzy...maybe drinking something would help. He handed the first cup to Xanatos, who took it with a small nod, but when he tried to hand the second one to Demona she knocked it aside, spilling scalding hot tea all over his hand and the floor.  
"ENOUGH!" shouted the female Gargoyle, knocking the table over (Puck barely rescued his own cup of tea in time). "I grow tired of these trivialities, Xanatos. I did not come here for a social visit, I came here to claim what is mine. Explain what is going on...NOW...or I will tear your tower apart, stone by stone if need be, until I find the mirror."  
Puck took a sip of the tea, and felt a little better. _Well, at least now I know why humans always go on about how nice it is to drink something hot right after coming in out of the cold..._ "That won't do you any good. We keep telling you, you still HAVE the mirror, it's just--" He broke off suddenly, as he noticed something different about Demona, now that he could see her in better light. "I love what you've done with your hair."  
"What?!" said Demona, startled at the non-sequitur. "What are you talking about?"  
Xanatos saw it, too. "Stylish," he agreed. He held up the silver tea-tray so that she could see her reflection.  
Deciding to humour him--but only for a moment--Demona bent down to look at herself in the tray--and gasped. She ran a clawed hand through her red hair...her...mostly red hair. There was a wide streak of white in it! And was it her imagination, or were there definite lines under her eyes...?  
"What sorcery is this, little one?" she snarled, and tossed the chain lasso around the fay, pinning his arms to his sides. "What have you done to me THIS time?"  
Puck realised that the chain was made of iron and winced, expecting to feel dizziness, disorientation, a sudden dulling of the senses...but instead, felt nothing but the vague sensation of cold metal through his clothes. At first he was confused, but then it came to him: _Of COURSE iron doesn't affect me right now; what it does is interfere with our magic...and I have none..._ She hadn't even tied the chain that tightly, he discovered. He easily struggled free of it, dropped the chain with a loud clank that made Demona jump despite herself, and walked very slowly and deliberately towards her. The female Gargoyle stayed where she was, frozen in shock, until the fay was right up in her personal space and glaring her directly in the eye. The gesture lost a bit of its effect since he had to stand on tiptoes to do it, but she didn't seem to notice.  
"I haven't done ANYthing to you...at least, since the last time we saw each other--and that was one time too many if you ask me--now SHUT UP AND LET ME EXPLAIN!"  
A bit startled, Demona regarded the fay as if he was a bomb that could go off at any moment, and tip-toed back a few paces.  
"Thank you." Puck straightened out his clothes and cleared his throat. "Ahem. I do not know the cause of it exactly, but--"  
"Hold that thought, Puck," said Xanatos, waving a hand to silence him. "I think our other guests are arriving. Might as well just explain it once and save time, hmm?"

"Hello?" A cautious female voice called from down the spiral staircase that led to the tower room. "Anybody there?" A cone of light spilled into the dimly-lit room and just behind it was Elisa Maza, holding a flashlight. She pulled her favourite red jacket closer to herself and wished she had thought to wear a warmer coat.  
"Ah, everybody's here." said Xanatos, greeting her with a warm smile. "The party is almost ready to begin."  
Elisa was ignoring him, however. "Demona!" she cried, as she noticed the female Gargoyle. "And Puck, again? What are YOU two doing here? What does any of this have to do with Cyberbiotics?"  
"I would like to know that too," came a deep, rumbling voice from out of the darkness, and the huge form of Goliath treaded quietly into the room, his wings folded about his shoulders like a cape. "Explain yourself, Xanatos."  
"Well, actually, it has nothing to do with Cyberbiotics." Xanatos held up a hand to forestall the inevitable outraged outburst from Elisa and Goliath. "A little subterfuge to get you here simply because...well...I gotta be me. As to the real problem, I would be all too glad to explain it to you, Detective Maza, Golia--oh, hello, dear!" He broke off suddenly as he noticed a third, unexpected, figure coming up the stairs behind the other two--his new wife, Fox.  
"THERE you are!" called Fox, dashing across the stone floor. "I kept trying to find you all day, but nobody knew where you were. Then I tried asking Owen, but nobody has seen HIM since that board meeting and that, as you know, is downright weird..." She slowed down as she caught sight of their guests. She was used to Gargoyles by now, and Detective Maza was almost a fixture around here in her way, but... "Who is THAT?" A pause, as she realised something else. "And why is he wearing one of my old suits?"  
Puck and Xanatos looked at each other. _I was right, he HASN'T told her yet,_ thought Puck to himself. _Well, he might want to tell her sometime soon..._  
"Owen is...indisposed, my dear." said Xanatos. He turned the table upright again, pulled out one of the chairs and, with a courtly bow, gestured her towards it. "But since you're here, I suppose you might as well listen to what we have to say."  
"Oh, I wouldn't miss this for the world, dear." she said, twisting the last word into a darkly mocking tone. "And I'll interrogate you about what's really going on with Owen later, in private. That man has never taken a day off since the beginning of time, and you and I both know it. But please, continue."  
"Puck, would you do the honours?" Xanatos gestured to the fay.  
"Puck?!" Fox repeated the name, then burst out laughing. "What, you mean like the character from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'? David, honey, if you wanted to put together a showing of that play to get us some good publicity with the arts crowd, you didn't have to hide it from me. You could have just asked..." She stood up and walked over to Puck, then pulled on the tips of his pointy ears. "Nice makeup, though. These things feel almost real!"  
"No, madam," said Puck, removing her hands as politely as possible. "Not the Puck from the play--the REAL one. Shakespeare slandered us Children of Oberon terribly, I'm afraid."  
Fox laughed again. "You're KIDDING me."  
Silence.  
She looked around at the serious faces of everybody else present. "You mean..."  
"Yes, Fox," sneered Demona, "He's quite real. As are his entire meddling race. I summoned him a while back and tried to get him to do a few spells of my bidding, but..."  
"Hey, finding loopholes in a wish by deliberately misinterpreting the words is pretty much EXPECTED, for a captive magical creature." Puck shrugged, not apologising at all. "You obviously haven't read enough fairy tales."  
"We have met him before, too," said Goliath in his deep voice. "Elisa and I were among the ones his spells affected that night."  
"That's right," agreed Elisa, "But I, for one, would like to know why we're all here. The REAL reason we're all here." She stared suspiciously at Puck. "Although I don't know how much truth we're going to get out of THIS guy--probably just a bunch of illusions."  
Puck shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid I couldn't even pull a rabbit out of a hat right now, Detective. It seems that sometime earlier today, all fay magic in the world stopped working...I believe Avalon, our homeland, is cut off and possibly in danger. Therefore, all spells and artifacts created or powered by its magic are dead or broken, until this crisis is over."  
Demona opened her mouth to snarl a retort...then suddenly remembered the OTHER spell she was under, reached up to run her hands through her hair again...and kept silent. _I'm aging..._ she thought, frightened. _Fast. The Wyrd Sisters would never have taken that spell off even if I begged them, so maybe the trickster IS telling the truth, for once..._  
"And that means I can't re-cast my spell on you right now, either." Puck nodded towards Demona and took another sip of tea. "I have no powers. I think nobody of the Third Race in the entire world has any powers right now. Except for any that might be on Avalon right now...if there is an Avalon any more..." He said this last part very softly, with a catch in his voice--but if anybody noticed, they didn't say anything.  
"What do I do, then?" said Demona, pacing back and forth like a tigress in a cage. "The Wyrd Sisters put a spell on me, and it's broken, too! I'm aging rapidly--I don't know how much time I have left!"  
Goliath, Elisa, Xanatos, and Fox all exchanged glances with each other, wondering what were these spells she was talking about, but said nothing. Demona wasn't likely to answer, and the Fair Folk were well-known for being secretive.  
Demona, on the other talon, was having some thoughts of her own. She considered gliding across town right at that moment and slaying MacBeth, now that she finally could do so without killing herself as well. It was a tempting idea. Very tempting. He would be aging too--and humans aged at twice the rate of Gargoyles, so by now he'd be rather weak...but she shook her head quickly to dislodge such thoughts. The world was a terrible, lonely place...but she wasn't ready to leave it just yet. If the Wyrd Sisters' spell was not reactivated soon, she would die soon after killing him anyway...and not a warrior's death, either. When she died, she didn't want it to be like this. Besides...despite herself, she was intrigued and wanted to find out what was going on. _Curse my morbid sense of curiosity._  
"Puck here believes that if we can travel to Avalon, find out what's going wrong there, and somehow fix it, then all the currently broken spells will immediately come back on again--like a light switch that's left on when the power goes out." Xanatos smiled as he addressed the group.  
Demona sniffed. "What makes you think they will? Maybe they'll stay broken, for all you know."  
"Maybe they will," replied Puck, "but this is our best and only chance. Besides, most spells don't break permanently unless a specific counterspell is chanted. Since nobody has done that..."  
"So we were about to travel to Avalon and investigate." Xanatos stepped in. "However, since the island is not normally accessible from this end, we shall have to use...alternate methods of travel."  
"The Phoenix Gate!" said Elisa, the light dawning in her eyes. "But what makes you think we'll go get it for you?"  
"Yes," rumbled Goliath. "Elisa is right. Why should we help you? Fairy magic has done nothing good for any of us. It seems to me...the world might be better off if your kind didn't have your powers, to manipulate us, spy on us, and even hurt us. It's not as if you need your magic to live. You will do fine without it."  
"We can survive without our magic." said Puck, looking the human woman and the male Gargoyle in the eye. "But not live. Not really live. Without any powers at all, we can't even disguise ourselves to pass among humankind undetected. We would be forced to live in the darkest, most secret places, coming out only at night, darting from shadow to shadow, always afraid of being hunted and killed like the 'monsters' we are...is that the kind of life you really want to condemn an entire race to?"  
Demona tossed her head back and let out a sharp bark of bitter laughter. "Ha! Sounds like now you'll know how WE feel."  
"Oh, yes." said Puck, coming over to stand in front of her. "I thought about that. Go ahead and gloat, Gargoyle...for the all of maybe three days you have left."  
She went silent.  
He turned, pleadingly, to the others. "I know you mortals think of magic as nothing but a myth, or, if you believe in it, a mysterious force that is only to be used in special circumstances. But for us, magic isn't a rare, strange thing. It's part of us. It is our lives. We learn our first spells in the cradle, and grow up with it, until by the time we are adult it is as natural to us as breathing--and nearly as necessary. Many of us are nowhere near as big and powerful as Gargoyles, so we don't even have fangs, claws, wings, tails, or strength to defend ourselves with. We look strange, but can't fight--we'd have the disadvantages of being non-human...with none of the advantages. Even the bigger, fiercer ones of our kind can be slain with ordinary guns and explosives, if their supernatural powers are gone. And, with a few exceptions, of course--" here he broke off to look at Elisa, Fox, and Xanatos "--your kind is not exactly known for opening its arms to those who look different. With technology advancing the way it is...even the blackest nights will not hide us for long."  
Elisa sighed, walked over to Goliath and put her hand on his massive leathery-skinned arm. "He's right, you know." she said softly. "We can't just stand by and let an entire race be doomed like that. Xanatos knows it; that's why he called us here."  
"Yes..." mused Goliath. "But how does HE know Puck in the first place? What was the Child of Oberon doing here?"  
"I'd like to know that myself." said Fox, staring at Puck sharply. "You know, there's something almost familiar about you. I wonder what you'd look like in glasses..."  
"Er, that's not important right now!" said Puck, waving his hands in front of him. "The important thing now is to get to Avalon and do whatever it takes to fix this problem."  
"I'll go back to our home and get the Phoenix Gate." said Goliath, heading for a window. "But if any of your people follow me, Xanatos..."  
"I assure you, nobody except the people in this room even knows where I am tonight." said the businessman.  
Goliath just gave him a baleful look, opened the window and the wooden shutters, and leapt off the sill.  
"Well," said Xanatos, turning towards the others. "It's going to be a while before he gets back, so can I offer you people anything?"  
"I'd like some of that tea, if you don't mind." Elisa had noticed the two cups--and the broken one--when she first walked in. _Looks like Demona's manners are the same as ever._  
Puck suddenly realised why he was feeling kind of dizzy. "I know where the kitchen is, I'll get it." he offered, before Xanatos could ring the bell. "While I'm at it, I think I'll get something for mysel..." but when he took a step, he staggered and almost fell over.  
"You all right?" said Xanatos, concerned.  
"I...yes...er...no." said Puck, leaning against a chair. He felt very...what was that human slang term? Woozy. "This is going to sound odd, but I think I...better have some food, myself. Lots of it. Very soon."  
Xanatos laughed. "Oh, so THAT'S it! It's been several hours since you first lost your powers, and you haven't eaten anything...you've never felt the effects of low blood-sugar before! This day is just one big learning experience for you, isn't it?"  
"I'm learning that I'll be very glad when it's over," muttered Puck to himself. 

30 minutes later. Goliath had taken a while to explain the problem to the rest of the Clan before taking the Gate finally and leaving, and had left Brooklyn temporarily in charge until he got back. "If you encounter any crimes that look too big or serious for you to handle alone, call Elisa's partner, Matt Bluestone, at the police station." he instructed them. As he walked back into the tower room, his eyes were greeted by a rather odd sight.  
The group was mostly sitting down, enjoying hot cups of tea and talking amongst themselves...except for two. One was rather expected--Demona, pacing back and forth across the floor with a scowl on her face and a growl under her breath-- the other was not. One entire end of the table was taken over by a large array of dishes--and sitting there, attacking the food ferociously, as if he were starving to death, was...Puck?!  
The little fay noticed Goliath staring at him and paused with a chicken leg halfway to his mouth. "Hey, YOU try not having any full meals for 300 years, and see how YOU feel."  
"I can beat that, actually." said Goliath, a smile stealing slowly across his square, rough-hewn features. "Try a thousand years."  
Puck shrugged, but didn't concede defeat. "True, but you weren't awake and using energy for the majority of that time." He finished the drumstick and started in on a bowl of salad. _Hopefully I'll recharge as soon as we get to Avalon...IF we get there...but in the meantime, energy is energy..._  
"Did you bring the Gate?" asked Xanatos, walking over towards the huge Gargoyle.  
"Yes, here it is." said Goliath, holding up a shining blue and gold medallion. Puck put down the breadstick he was holding--reluctantly--and rushed over to look at it. "Let me check to see if it's still working."  
"How do you intend to do that?" asked Fox. "You're not going to go travelling through time by yourself, are you?"  
"Sssshhh..." said Xanatos, putting a finger to his lips. "Let the man concentrate."  
Puck looked Goliath in the eye, questioningly, and the huge Gargoyle nodded. The fay took the Phoenix Gate out of Goliath's hand, closed his eyes and...  
_Power._ A burning, tingling thrill ran all up and down the fay's spine, as he held the magic artifact. Oh, how he'd missed it. The energy inside the magic artifact was almost trying to get inside of him, the way water will automatically flow from a full tank to an empty one if they are connected. It would be so easy to let it...  
The others gasped. Puck opened his eyes and blinked, taking a moment to come back to dull reality, and wondered what they were staring at--until he looked down and realised he was floating a few inches above the floor.  
"Ahem." he said, embarrassed, and forced his feet to touch the stone floor again. "Yes, the Gate is still working. It's linked to Avalon, I can tell--which means it probably can still take us there."  
"Okay, Goliath, Elisa, come over here and gather around Puck," said Xanatos. "He's the only one here who has ever been to Avalon, so naturally he has to be the one commanding the Phoenix Gate."  
Goliath stood next to the fay on his left side, Elisa stood next to him on the right. Xanatos stood in front of him. Then, to everybody's surprise, Demona came over to stand behind the Child of Oberon. This put her uncomfortably close to Elisa. The two women glared at each other.  
"Why are YOU coming along?" demanded the detective.  
"I'm not letting this slimy little trickster--"  
Puck clicked his tongue disapprovingly and wagged a finger. "Labels, labels..."  
"--out of my sight until he promises to restore my spell!" finished Demona.  
Fox stepped forward to join the group, but Xanatos stopped her. "No, my dear," he said, holding up a hand to forestall her objections. "I know, I know, you're a great fighter and would help out our chances. Nobody knows that better than me. But with both Owen and myself gone, for who knows how long--"  
"Where IS Owen, anyway?" asked Fox again, staring intently at her husband.  
"Anyway, with both of us gone," Xanatos ignored her question and continued, "SOMEbody has to take care of Xanatos Enterprises. And you, my dear, are now a Xanatos." He kissed her hand. "Well, you've only been one for a short time, but it still counts. Take care of the store until we're back, my dear--I'm sure you'll do it proud." He turned back to Puck. "Let's see if this works. Everybody...quiet!"  
Puck held the Phoenix Gate high above his head, and started to speak the incantation:  
"Time, always rushing forward in thy flight--" then he cut off abruptly. _Of course that spell won't work now,_ he thought, chagrined. _Our spells to activate items work only partly on the item's own power; the direction comes from within us. I'll have to use the mortal version. Oh, Danu, if any of the others find out about this--especially Coyote or Loki--I'll NEVER live it down..._  
Realising that the others were all staring at him in confusion, Puck cleared his throat, carefully avoided their eyes, and tried again. "Deflagrate muri tempi et intervallia!"  
A swirling green vortex appeared above their heads, swallowed them up, and disappeared.  
Fox stood there in the empty room. "What an interesting crowd I run with," she muttered, and wandered over to munch on the leftover breadsticks. 


	3. Frozen

**"Spellbound"**

A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!) 

Rating: G. Spoilers for up through "The Gathering" 

Chapter Three: Frozen 

It was still early morning on Avalon, although a very strange "morning"--the only way to tell that it was day instead of night was the fact that the hatchlings were in their stone forms. Otherwise, the sky was as black as midnight--seeming somehow darker, in fact, because there were no stars twinkling above. There were some clouds, but not enough to account for this amount of darkness, and of the sun, there was no sign. Rain fell in harsh, icy drops, almost as if nature itself had somehow become malevolent and was deliberately attacking anybody foolish enough to be caught outside. Princess Katherine couldn't make herself look at that awful, blank sky--but it wasn't as if the ground was any better. And if she kept her gaze indoors, she saw only her own fear reflected right back at her, in the eyes of the others. Even the Wyrd Sisters, immortal though they were, appeared to be as unnerved as the humans--in fact, they looked downright sickly. Their faces were pale and they hadn't moved from the three chairs they were sitting in for over an....well, for a longish-seeming time.  
Nervously, Katherine turned to Tom and the Magus in an attempt to make conversation. Anything was better than just sitting here in the dark, waiting for...whatever, to happen. "So..." The word made the other two jump, even though she had spoken in a quiet tone, "Er...so this is what it's like to see storms on Avalon. The clouds must be very thick indeed to block out the sun like that, right?"  
"Yes." said Tom, unable to think of anything else to say, and laid his head back down on his arms in another futile attempt to catch a bit of sleep.  
Nervously, the Magus cleared his throat. He had that expression on his face that people get when they're about to say something that will upset the other person, but the other person has to know. "Actually, Your Highness...that blank darkness? It's...not caused by clouds."  
"Then...why can't we see the sun?" Katherine blinked in surprise.  
"There..." here the Magus looked as if he was struggling with himself to complete the sentence "...isn't one."  
At this, Tom sat bolt upright. Guardian and Princess stared at the magician as if he had gone completely mad.  
"At least, that's my theory, anyway," said the Magus, backpedalling quickly rather than look into their eyes. "If Avalon really has been cut off entirely, then it is in its own seperate pocket universe. With nothing else around. Don't you get it? That means...no sun. No moon. No nothing."  
"So..."  
"Unless whatever this problem is is fixed soon, we'll all freeze to death. Well, us mortals will. I'm not sure about the Sisters."  
At this, the Wyrd Sisters momentarily roused themselves from their lethargy.  
"We Daughters of Oberon are indeed long-lived and can withstand many things you mortals cannot, due to our magic..."  
Luna trailed off.  
"...but some things can still harm us. A land without sunlight will kill us the same as you." Phoebe went on.  
"It will just take longer..." concluded Selene, in a barely audible whisper.  
Then, as if somebody had hit their "off" switches, the three fell back into their sleeping poses in unison.  
The three humans just stared for a moment.  
"But if there's no sun, how come the hatchlings are asleep?" wondered Katherine aloud, after a moment.  
"Yes, that's a very good question. Tell us, Magus, do you have a theory about that?" asked Tom, who was now too unnerved to even attempt sleep.  
"I think..." the Magus had been wondering about this matter himself, "I think...that time is now...frozen. When the island was cut off, the sun was just beginning to rise. So now, with no sun, there are no cycles, and we will stay in eternal 'dawn' until Avalon's shores are opened again. That means that the Gargoyles will never wake up...for however long we have left..."  
_And they'll be the lucky ones,_ thought Katherine morosely. No need to say it aloud--the others were all thinking the same thing.  
Outside, the stinging rain turned to snow.

In her office--or rather, Anastasia Renard's office--at the Australian division of Cyberbiotics, Queen Titania looked up with a sudden jerk. For no reason at all, she felt cold...so very, very cold...even though it was summer in the southern hemisphere. Her first thought was to go put another lab coat on over "Anastasia's" outfit, but as soon as she thought of it, she had the feeling that that would do no good--the cold was coming from within, not without. But just to make sure, she put down the portable game system--with "Fantasy Quest XII" still running--and peeked out the window, being careful not to let any of the mortals see her face.  
Bright sunlight greeted her eyes, green grass, people were walking around outside in t-shirts and shorts...it was a perfectly normal December day.  
Yet still she knew that something was terribly wrong.

"And tell Bradley in Research that I want his report on my desk by tomorrow morning, Darlene, or..." Fox Xanatos put a hand to her head, suddenly feeling dizzy, but she didn't know why. "Or...." She shook her head and looked around, as if just now seeing the room for the first time. "What was I just saying, Darlene?"  
The short, somewhat pudgy secretary pushed her cats'-eye glasses back up her nose and prompted her employer, "Bradley's report...tomorrow...?"  
"Oh, yes." said Fox, shivering. Why was it so cold all of a sudden? She knew Darlene wouldn't dare mess with the thermostat settings in her office--not if she knew what was good for her. "Yes. Tell him to have it on my desk by tomorrow morning, or..." She shivered again.  
"You all right, Mrs. Xanatos?" said Darlene solicitously, in her nasal Brooklyn accent. "You don't look so good, if ya don't mind me sayin'."  
"I don't...feel so good," admitted Fox. "Tell you what, Darlene, I think I'm going to call it a night and go watch an old movie on cable. You can knock off early too."  
"Gee, really, Mrs. Xanatos? Thanks! Now I can catch up on my Christmas shopping!" The secretary started to gather up her things.  
Fox just nodded vaguely; she had other things to worry about. _But since I'm probably not going to figure it out any time soon, I might as well just go rest and see if that helps any._ she thought. Turning on her heel, she left the room.

There was a loud CRACK of thunder, and a swirling vortex appeared in the sky--though, amidst the roiling clouds, it wasn't all that noticeable--and an unlikely adventuring party, made up of all three of the Races, was deposited on the ground. Elisa and Xanatos looked around in interest, since they had only heard of Avalon before. Puck looked around in shock, because he knew what he SHOULD be seeing...and this wasn't it. Demona and Goliath...had their own problems.  
"Wow, so this is Avalon..." Elisa shivered and pulled her coat closer to herself, now really wishing she had thought to bring warmer clothes. _Memo to self: Buy a parka as soon as you get home._ She stared around at the snowdrifts, the black sky criss-crossed by clouds of dark reds and greens, and the strange, unearthly aura that seemed to be coming up from the ground itself. The pale glow was just enough to make you wish you couldn't see anything at all--it just made the shadows seem that much darker. "It's not how I imagined it, though...did we arrive in the middle of a storm?"  
Xanatos said nothing, just scanned the landscape, storing away as much detail as possible for later.  
Puck was experiencing a very strange and disorienting mixture of feelings. Physically, he felt an almost scary euphoria--power, power surging back into him in great waves, power which should feel wonderful but instead was writhing, twisting inside him, chaotic...as if struggling to get out of control...it made him light-headed and giddy, and he had to fight to keep his wits about him. Emotionally, he felt both happy to be back home, a place he found intolerably dull and would normally go out of his way to avoid--and sickened with worry at the same time. This was Avalon--a changeless paradise, the Summer Country...it was NOT supposed to look like THIS! Or feel this cold... His low-level defense spells had kicked in automatically, but even shielded as he was, he still felt cold...and that meant the temperature would soon be lethal to the humans.  
He was about to say something to this effect when suddenly a gasp came from behind him and he, Elisa, and Xanatos turned around to stare at Demona.  
Clutching her head in her hands, the female Gargoyle began to...change. First, the white stripe disappeared from her hair and the wrinkles from under her eyes, but that was only the beginning. The skin changed from pale blue to peach, the features softened, she became several inches shorter, the form less muscular, the feet flat on the ground, the talons and fangs became ordinary fingernails and teeth, the bony spikes on knees and elbows retracted into smooth flesh, and the tail and wings dwindled into nothing. The entire time this was happening, she writhed about, in obvious pain but even more obviously determined not to cry out in front of others.  
When it was all over, a normal-sized human woman stood there, wearing simple white rags that were suddenly FAR too skimpy for this climate.  
Goliath, meanwhile, had turned to stone.  
"Well, I guess that answers the question of whether it's day or night..." mused Puck, leaning against Goliath's stone shoulder as if it were a convenient wall. "And also the question of whether or not the spells would re-activate if the 'power' came back on."  
Elisa just stood there, stunned, staring at the redheaded human woman in disbelief. Xanatos was surprised, too, but he covered for it by taking off his trenchcoat and gallantly offering it to the shivering ex-Gargoyle. She looked as if she would like nothing better than to toss it on the ground, but thought better of it and wrapped the garment around herself.  
"So, now you know my secret," said Demona, trying her best to speak in her usual haughty tone, but it lost some of its effect due to the fact that she was still panting with exhaustion and shivering at the same time. "I asked THIS one--" here she minced barefoot through the snowdrifts to Puck "--to cast a spell that would keep me from turning to stone during the day. He thought it would be--" and here her voice took on more of its proper sneer "amusing to make it so I turned into a HUMAN, the race I despise most, during the day, instead."  
Puck shrugged. "Well, you can't say I didn't deliver. Look, it's daylight--sort of--and you're not stone, are you?"  
Demona reached out a hand and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, yet again. She had gotten into the habit of treating him like that from the first time they met...it hadn't quite seemed to occur to her, yet, that not only was he not in chains this time, but she was also nowhere near as tall and strong as normal. "But now the magic is back, and I am going to get out of you what I originally came to Xanatos's tower for. I want you to change my spell---make it work the RIGHT way. NOW!"  
Puck said nothing, but his eyes started to glow an unearthly bright green, his long silver hair writhed around on non-existent breezes. The were-human didn't seem to think much of this, but it was not lost on the other two, and they stepped away from the pair. Elisa, who had seem him go like this once before but it was when he was helping, not because of anger, suddenly found herself shivering for a reason that had nothing to do with the cold. Suddenly instead of looking almost like a small, harmless little almost-human, he seemed to be some wild, feral demon-creature from the Shadow Realms. _I've gotta stop reading those cheesy fantasy books Matt keeps reccomending to me_, she thought.  
Xanatos looked a bit unnerved, too--he had known that his assistant was not human since...before he was his assistant, but the businessman had never seen him looking quite so...inhuman, before.  
It seemed as if Demona had finally pushed her luck that one millimetre too far, that Puck was going to do something really horrible to her...but instead, he just mentally flipped her into the nearest tree.  
"Rule Number One," he said, walking over to her very slowly, hands on hips, "Never pick a fight with someone on their own turf. Rule Number Two: Avalon does NOT give refunds. If you are dissatisfied with your service, it's your own fault for forcing one of us to give it to you against their will!"  
Demona stood up, dizzily, and opened her mouth as if she was about to argue, but Puck gestured again and she zoomed about 50 feet into the air. He then held her there and continued talking as if nothing unusual was going on, swinging her around in circles a few times just for fun, first.  
"I made it so you would turn into a human partly out of my sense of dramatic irony, yes." he continued. "After all, how could I resist? People with no sense of humour are always the easiest ones to make fun of. But it was partially for a real reason, too. You see, to change something in a way that goes against its fundamental nature is far more difficult than to change it to something it's already sort of like. For example, it is easier to make an evil person commit murder, than a good one. A Gargoyle's tendency to turn to stone during the daytime is built into them at that deep, fundamental level. It can only be changed by a spell of great power, and by the end of that night, I was nearly drained. So, rather than just give up entirely, I...side-stepped the problem. You don't turn to stone because you turn into a race that doesn't NEED to turn to stone. It was the only solution at the time--aside from having you turn into a dumb animal, of course, and I doubt you would have wanted that."  
Demona, after struggling against the invisible force that held her in the air for a moment, grudgingly listened to what Puck had to say--and something occurred to her. "Wait! That's not true. There is another option."  
The three on the ground looked at each other...then the implication hit all of them at once. Puck's eyes went wide. "NO." he said flatly. "Absolutely not. No mortals may be turned into members of the Third Race--and for a very good reason. They would have the powers without the long lifetime's worth of learning how to use them--ultimate power with absolutely no restraint or knowledge. We can handle this level of power because we are used to it; we live our entire lives fighting against the temptation, learning to control ourselves. A mortal would not have that benefit of experience--the feeling would be too overwhelming, possibly even unhinge their mind. Such magic is forbidden--do not speak of it again."  
"But..." began Demona, almost pleading. "I wouldn't abuse my powers--I've been around for..." she cut off as she realised that she had been about to give away personal information that she would rather Elisa and Xanatos did not know, "....longer than most mortals, anyway. I could handle it! All I would use it for would be to look human while not actually having to suffer their weaknesses, change shape to fit in, look just like everybody else..." _But you shouldn't HAVE to._ came a bitter little thought from somewhere deep inside.  
Puck lowered her slowly most of the way, dropped her the last ten feet into a snowdrift, and shook his head. "No. Even if I could do such a spell--which I can't--no."  
Meanwhile, wheels were turning within Xanatos's mind, as always. _Forbidden magic,_ he mused. _"Forbidden", NOT "impossible". Interesting...very, very interesting..._  
"Well, I think we should try to find some shelter or something," said Elisa, whose lips were now almost turning blue. "Man, is it ALWAYS this cold here?"  
"It's not supposed to be cold at a--" began Puck, but was cut off as, with a sudden lurching sensation, all five members of their party--including Goliath--disappeared from the frozen landscape.

"-ll" he finished, and the group stared about themselves in confusion. They were standing on a large wooden table--or what was left of it, anyway--in a stone-walled room--a kitchen, from the looks of it. It was small enough that its fireplace could keep it at least warm enough to be liveable, and that was more important thing to the castle's inhabitants at the moment than grand, ostentatious decor. Three humans and three almost-identical women who looked human except for their eerily pupil-less blue eyes stared back at the group, seeming almost as startled as they were--perhaps because the arrival of Goliath's extremely heavy stone form had smashed the table into kindling.  
Puck recovered first. "Sisters!" he exclaimed, leaping backwards from them involuntarily. _Oh, they are NOT gonna be happy that I brought mortals onto the island without permission..._ "Er, thank you for teleporting us here, but..."  
"We did not cast the spell," said Luna, shaking her head solemnly.  
"It was the human magician," said Phoebe, inclining her blonde head towards the Magus.  
"We did not know he was capable of such a thing." finished Selene.  
The four conscious members of the party turned to stare at someone they hadn't noticed before, possibly because he was so quiet--a thin, elderly man with a beard and long white hair. Demona's eyes went wide with shock as she recognised him and the Princess. "YOU!" she yelled. "I remember the two of you, very well indeed! But how are you still alive after all these centuries?"  
"One could ask the same of you, my dear," said Xanatos gently, raising an eyebrow at her. "But enough of this touching little reunion--I'm more interested in hearing how this talented gentleman pulled off such an impressive spell."  
Embarrassed at the attention, the Magus babbled, "Well, you see...normally I couldn't do this. The power of this place is...enhanced, right now, because of the way Avalon's magic is...turned in upon itself."  
"I noticed," said Puck quietly, his eyes flashing green for a moment. All his life, he had used magic...now, he had to fight to keep magic from using him.  
"Er, yes..." the Magus agreed. "It's enhanced, but erratic. I don't have my book of spells with me anymore, but I remember my training, and I've had a theory that maybe I could use it to pull upon the power of Avalon itself for a while now..." He gulped, waiting for someone to interrupt him. When he realised that they were still hanging on his every word, he went on. "Well, even though I knew it wasn't a good idea, when I saw you out there, freezing to death, I thought, I just CAN'T let them die, but how do I get to them through all that blinding snow, and--"  
"--We came to you." said Xanatos, standing up and walking over to shake the Magus's hand. "Very good work, mister...?"  
"They just call me the Magus," he said, looking into the smiling face of this intimidating stranger--a smile that did not reach the eyes. "I...I've been 'The Magus' for so long, I've forgotten my real name."  
"How long HAVE you guys been here, anyway?" asked Elisa, accepting the fur robe that Tom silently put into her hands. "Those clothes aren't exactly cutting-edge fashion, back in the real world--unless you're going to a RenFest."  
Katherine handed fur robes to Demona and Xanatos. "Over a thousand years," she answered.  
"But...but I thought you guys were human!" Elisa was bewildered.  
"Time does not flow on Avalon as it does in the real world, child," said Luna.  
Puck waited for the other two to chime in, and was amazed when they didn't. _Wow, things must be REALLY bad_ he thought, dryly.  
"They're not the only mortals here!" shouted Demona, pointing out the window at the battlements across the way. "Look!"  
Sure enough, various Gargoyle statues were perched atop the stone walls. "You think they're real?" Elisa asked, staring at them. She couldn't tell until they actually moved, herself.  
"I just know." said Demona. "Those are my own kind, not statues. I'd almost bet my life on it."  
"And ye'd be right, though ye won't see them wake up any time soon," sighed Tom, turning around as he finished stoking the fire. "According to the wizard here, this island is frozen in eternal 'daybreak'--but with no sun--until we can...rejoin the world again. The air is still here because it belongs to Avalon, but the sun, that belongs to the 'mortal realm.'"  
"No sun?!" demanded Demona, whipping around to stare at the others. "What do you mean, no sun? You mean it's behind a cloud, right? How can it be day without any sun?"  
"No moon, either," said the Magus, folding his hands into the long, flowing sleeves of his white robes, "or stars. Nothing. Avalon is now in its own seperate universe, floating in space, as far as I can tell... Even with the Wyrd Sisters' protective spells working at full power, we still have only...the equivalent of three days here left before we all freeze solid. Humans, Gargoyles, and Fair Folk alike."  
_And if Avalon dies, then so will all my brothers and sisters on Earth._ thought Puck, miserably.  
"Is there anything we can do to--" Elisa began, but was cut off by a huge, shuddering CRUNCH from outside. Even though it seemed to come from a long way away, it still made the floor of the castle shake. A pause. Then another impact, from closer. Then another, even closer and louder.  
"It is as we feared!" cried Luna, as all three stood up.  
"The weakening and twisting of Avalon's magic has caused one of the prisons to open, and the creatures inside have escaped!" continued Phoebe.  
"They're back! Avalon is invaded!" shrieked Selene. The three joined hands and began to float off the floor as an eerie green aura surrounded them.  
"Who? Who's back? Who's invading?" Demona wanted to know.  
"THE FROST GIANTS!" shouted the three sorcoresses in unison.  
Elisa tried to remember what she remembered hearing about Frost Giants...oh, no, not..."They're here because it's 'the end of the world', right?" she asked, already knowing the answer.  
"Actually, they're here because the pocket dimensions are starting to...leak into each other, but it's also the end of a world." said Puck, standing up slowly and looking at the wall as if he was seeing straight through it, watching the giants' progress--which he probably was. "Close enough."  
"We must stay here and guard the castle," said Luna.  
"But we will give you magical protection against the elements," said Phoebe.  
"And weapons," said Selene.  
"Fight for Avalon, please! Save our homeland!" they chorused. The three sisters raised their hands over their heads in unison, and a sprinkling of glittering green dust fell down over the humans.  
Elisa immediately felt warmer, as if an invisible shield was all around her body, keeping the cold out. _But how am I to fight a giant--frosty or otherwise--without any weapons?_ she wondered. _They said they'd give us some, but I don't see any. This would have to happen on the one day my gun is in the shop..._  
As if in answer to her thoughts, part of the wall in front of them wavered into mist and disappeared, showing a small, cramped room. Curious, Elisa stepped inside and looked around. "These are the weapons you're giving us?" she said, coming back out holding what looked like a perfectly ordinary sword in one hand and a mace slung under her other arm. "You're kidding me. Shouldn't they have, I dunno, blades made out of fire or something?"  
The Wyrd Sisters flinched as one when Elisa accidentally gestured towards them with the sword while talking. "They are made out of iron, child." said Luna, shuddering. "That is why they were hidden away so carefully."  
"The Giants are also of the Third Race," continued Phoebe. "Iron will harm them."  
"Our kind have....not always been united, you might say," concluded Selene. "There are parts of our history we're not exactly proud of."  
Elisa worked this out. "I get it. You're saying that dangerous as these weapons are, Oberon knows that someday, the Fair Folk will have to fight each other again, so he hid the weapons rather than get rid of them entirely, right?" _Gee, why does that sound kind of...familiar? I certainly have never heard of governments in the REAL world behaving that way, no..._  
"Exactly." said Puck, who winced as Demona strapped on a sword belt at the waist, a longsword at the back, and a dagger to each leg. _Remind me to stay out of HER way during this battle..._ "I myself will be using magic, of course, though I'm not sure how well it will work, around all this iron..."  
"Maybe ye should take one of the weapons, too...just in case?" suggested Tom. "Ye could wear gloves or some such."  
Puck just looked at Tom, and the knight dropped the argument.  
"But even with these weapons, how can we few hope to survive against giants?" wondered Katherine, testing the string on a compact hunting bow.  
"You will have help," said Luna, and turned towards the wall of the room. She held her hands out in front of herself at arm's length.  
"We shall temporarily release the Gargoyle hatchlings from their stone sleep," continued Phoebe, matching her sister's gesture.  
"Join with them, and you will have a chance," concluded Selene. They gestured towards the outside wall and started chanting.  
"Creatures who in stone would sleep,  
Awaken to guard this ancient keep,  
Let no Gargoyle in slumber fall,  
'Til this fight's ended, once and for all!"  
As they chanted the spell, a beam of green light shot out of each sorcoress's hands. The three beams joined into one large beam in the middle, and went straight through the stone wall without disturbing it.  
Only a small amount of what happened next could be seen through the kitchen's small windows, so everybody except the Sisters went outside to look. There was a great cracking sound, and, with many a ferocious roar or snarl, the stone Gargoyles on the parapets came to life, stretching as they did so.  
From behind the group came another cracking sound, as Goliath woke up as well. Confused, the huge Gargoyle came up behind Elisa and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around. "Ah. Um. Well, it's kind of hard to explain, but basically...there isn't any sun and we'll all freeze to death soon, the Frost Giants have escaped from some kind of prison, and the Wyrd Sisters woke up you Gargoyles early so you could help in the fight."  
"There is to be a battle, that's all I need to know," said Demona, swishing her sword through the air with a flourish. This was her element; it was almost as if this was 10th-century Scotland and she was Goliath's second in command again. "Come to me, my troops!" she commanded the newly-woken Gargoyle hatchlings. "Our enemy lies over that hill!"  
The hatchlings looked confused at the fact that a strange human woman--not Katherine, whom they knew well--was ordering them about. "She's a Gargoyle. No, really," said Elisa. "It's...a long story."  
One of the hatchlings--an adolescent girl with blueish-lavendar skin and long coffee-coloured hair--came forward and stared curiously at Goliath. She seemed about to ask him something, but then stopped as if she wasn't sure. Goliath and Demona stared at her, too, but since Demona was in human form at the moment--something just...nagged at the back of each of their brains, without snapping into a clear answer.  
"My name is Angela," she said, a little nervously. "Can...can somebody tell us what's going on here?"  
Another shuddering CRUNCH sounded from off in the distance...but not distant enough as far as Elisa was concerned. "No time for that now! Hurry!" she cried, waving towards where she thought the sound had come from. "We have to do something or we'll all be crushed!"  
Goliath couldn't stop staring at the young Gargoyle girl...she looked so familiar...and one of the others--a young male with grey-green skin and blonde hair--brought back phantoms of the past as well...but he shoved these thoughts out of his mind to concentrate on the immediate problem. _I hate to admit it, but Demona is right,_ he mused. _The only thing we need to worry about right now is guarding the castle...even if it isn't, technically, our castle._ Almost everybody in their group rushed off towards the sound of the giant footsteps, weapons out and ready.  
In the confusion, Puck was the only one to notice that Xanatos was nowhere to be seen.


	4. Divergence

**"Spellbound"**

A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!) 

Rating: G. Spoilers for up through "The Gathering" 

Chapter Four: Divergence 

"ELISA! Quick! Get out of the way!" Goliath roared and pounced on the human female, rolling her aside just in time before a gigantic foot would have stomped on her. Since they landed in deep snow, she was unhurt. The cop stood up, a little dizzily, and brushed a few strands of black hair out of her face.  
"I'm all right, Goliath, don't worry," she reassured him, and turned around to slash at the ankle of another Frost Giant. "Man, these things are HUGE."  
"That's why they call them giants, I do believe," said Puck under his breath, and, concentrating, cast a ball of fire at one of the giants. Despite the name they weren't actually made out of snow and ice--they were normal (albeit very large), solid, flesh-and-blood humanoids with white and ice-blue colouring, which made them look as if they were made out of snow and ice, from a distance. However, being used to colder climates, they were still more vulnerable to fire magic than other creatures, and Puck was taking full advantage of this.  
The battle was not going that well--so far, nobody on their side had been seriously hurt, but they weren't able to inflict any real damage on the giants either. Not that most of the people in their group wanted to kill the giants...they just wanted to make them stop, go unconscious or something. Puck could have told them they were wasting their time--the Frost Giants had been locked up in that pocket dimension for many centuries and were very, very angry. They weren't about to just surrender.  
Not surprisingly, the smaller person who best matched them in ferocity was Demona. She was insane--using all the different weapons she had brought with her, dodging and weaving between the giants' feet--Puck kept expecting her to be stomped on or crushed by an enourmous weapon, but she always dodged aside just in time and kept attacking, never letting up, as if she had gone berserk. Perhaps she had.  
The younger Gargoyles fought with great enthusiasm, too--which was perhaps not terribly surprising, as Avalon was the only home they had ever known, and they were fighting to defend it. Snarling, Angela flew at a Frost Giant's face, her javelin out in front of her. The giant whapped her aside with a slow yet powerful flick of one huge hand, and the hatchling careened out of control. Gabriel, the greyish one with blonde hair, caught her before she would have hit the ground. Princess Katherine then took advantage of the giant's momentary distraction to shoot an arrow--and actually scored a hit, in the giant's left eye. It howled with pain and staggered around, disoriented.  
"Good shooting, Your Highness!" called out Tom, charging towards the stricken giant with an enourmous broadsword. However, just before he could swing, the giant lurched dizzily towards him. The human knight had to leap out of the way in a great hurry, not really watching which direction his sword was moving. There was a sizzling sound, as of something metal touching an electrical field, and for a second, a shimmering blue bubble of light flashed into view, surrounding the fay's body. Then it flickered out and died, and Puck felt a sharp, burning pain sear across his upper left arm.  
He cried out, despite himself. Iron was the one substance that could rip through his magical defenses as if they were naught but wet paper. Clutching his arm, Puck fell to his knees in the snow, his breath hissing between clenched teeth. Tom realised what he had done and, ashamed, led him away from the main heat of battle.  
"Are ye all right, sir?" he asked, worried and embarrassed. "Most apologies, I didna mean ta..."  
"It's--" Puck started to say it was all right, just a scratch, but then thought better of it. _Here's my excuse to get out of the battle so I can go follow Xanatos..._ "OW! Oh, argh! It hurts..." He ripped a piece off the white blouse he was wearing and wrapped it around the wound. Even though it was superficial, it was bleeding a good bit, and the bandage was soon stained dark green.  
As Tom looked down at him with an expression of extreme shame and worry, Puck reassured him, "Don't worry, it's not actually serious. But I will need some time in order to do the healing spell. You go on, go back to the fight."  
Tom still looked unconvinced. "I can take ye back to the castle..."  
Puck waved him off. "Go! I'll be fine, really. I'm not angry with you. Accidents do happen. Go. They need you back there. You're one of their best warriors." He left out the fact that this was only true because the others were mostly untried civillians. Well, Tom was technically an untried civillian too, but at least he had done a fairly decent job of training himself to use a sword and shield.  
Still looking back over his shoulder for a bit, Tom picked up his sword again and returned to the fray. Puck stayed where he was, waiting for him to leave, then decided to get on with his own plans. His magic could only do so much against the Frost Giants...and besides, fixing the whole problem that was currently wrong with Avalon was more important. He had an idea of how to do that--and he also had a feeling that it had something to do with the recent disappearance of David Xanatos. So, ducking behind a tree so as to avoid the gazes of the others, he prepared a spell to take him to the billionaire. He briefly considered healing himself first, but it was only a minor wound. He needed to track down his erstwhile employer first. And he had a feeling he was in the past...  
"Make time into a revolving door,  
And take me back to what was before!"  
The world shimmered and rippled about him, as it usually did during a major teleport spell...but partway through, Puck suddenly felt as if he was being WRENCHED sideways--to both the left and the right at once. By the time he finished fighting off the resulting wave of dizziness and nausea, he was at his destination.  
A destination, anyway...

Puck looked around at his new surroundings in confusion. This was...not where he had expected to be taken. Instead of being back in medieval Scotland, he was still on Avalon!--only, Avalon as it should be, all green, warm, inviting, and beautiful. It would have been deeply healing to Puck's soul to see his homeland whole and sound again, if not for the fact that he knew that something had gone wrong with the teleport--and that was NOT a type of magic you ever wanted to hear the word "Oops!" associated with. Confused, he looked around, trying to get his bearings. _Can't do another spell of that size just now, I need a bit to recover..._  
"Mother, what's that?" called a voice from about a hundred yards away, in a meadow beyond the grove of oak trees Puck was currently standing in. "I thought I saw a...a flash of light, from those trees over there."  
"Don't be foolish, Avery," came a gentle male voice with a British accent. "Nobody lives here except for the three of us and Tom, and we wouldn't start a fire in the woods."  
"But I'm telling you, I saw something." insisted the voice of Avery, which Puck judged to be a young boy. "I'm going to go see what it was."  
_Whoops! Gotta hide._ thought Puck, looking around for good hiding places. He could attempt to turn himself invisible, but "invisibility" spells didn't really hide a person or thing from view entirely--all they did was enhance the possibility that anybody not really looking for the person or thing, wouldn't happen to see them. And the boy was looking for Puck, or at least for where the "flash" from the teleportation spell had come from. So Puck did the next best thing--hide in plain sight.  
"Ah, there's nobody here," said Avery, looking around. Puck studied him through his new eyes. The boy was about nine years old, physically, (he would be quite a bit older in normal-Earth years, of course) with pale skin, light brown hair with a white streak at the right temple, worn long in a ponytail, large, slanted grey eyes, and unusually delicate features. He wore a simple green robe, tied at the waist with a length of rope, and a pair of home-made sandals. If Puck didn't know better, he would have assumed the kid was a mixed-blood...there was something...odd about him. Well, besides the fact that, on the normal version of Avalon, he had never been born....  
"Oh, how cute!" cried the boy, catching sight of Puck in his disguised form. Puck cursed himself for not having chosen something a little less appealing to humans. Avery picked up the fluffy, long-haired albino squirrel, petting it. "A white squirrel! I've never seen one this colour before. Can I keep it, Mother, please, can I keep it?" He carried Puck in his arms as he walked back out of the trees.  
Princess Katherine--looking a good bit younger than she did the last time Puck had seen her--came forward, laughing. "Of course you may, son," she said, "But only if it likes you. If it wants to go free, you must let it."  
"I promise I'll be kind to it," said Avery. Then he noticed the wound on the squirrel's left foreleg for the first time. "Awww, he's hurt...I'll get food for him so he won't have to, until he gets better." He gently set the squirrel on the ground.  
_Now's my chance to get out of this crazy alternate-reality!_ thought Puck, and prepared to zip off into the woods. But just before he could leap, he felt a strange force binding him and the boy began to chant.  
"Twigs of oak and pine lying near,  
Make a cage to keep him here."  
And before the astonished fay could move, a wooden cage had formed itself around him out of twigs and small branches on the ground. _What the?_ thought Puck to himself. _How'd he DO that? That was a fay-magic spell--but this kid's human!  
...A human who was conceived and born on Avalon, the most magical place there is, and taught from a very young age by a wizard father...hmmm... Well, at least now I begin to understand what the strangeness was that I was sensing about him. But how to get out of here without breaking character...?_  
"Now, now, Avery," chided the Magus. "What have I told you about using your magic unnecessarily? You'll wear yourself out!"  
"Father," protested Avery, rolling his eyes, "It was just a little spell, it won't hurt me. Besides, how would I keep the squirrel still while I took the time to make a cage the normal way? You know how fast they are."  
_This is all very interesting, but alternate realities aren't supposed to happen, something is going MAJORLY wrong with Avalon's magic if even time itself is breaking its own rules...GET ME OUT OF HERE!_ thought Puck frantically. He paced back and forth in his cage, looking for all the world like any ordinary hyperactive rodent.  
"Perhaps he doesn't like the cage, dear." said Katherine.  
"I think he wants something, but I don't know what..." said Avery, looking into the squirrel's pupil-less blue eyes.  
_Oh, geez. There it is. The cue for one of the biggest cliches ever. But, well, they do say that cliches are cliches for a reason..._ Swallowing his pride, Puck sat up alertly and "pointed" with his nose and fluffy tail towards the woods.  
"I think he wants me to go that direction." said Avery, staring at the squirrel.  
_Yes, yes, that's it, pick up on the clue..._  
"He lives in the forest, it's only natural he'd be happier there," said Katherine.  
Puck pointed towards the grove again. The boy picked up the cage. "Can I have a picnic in the woods?"  
"Don't climb too high up any trees," advised the Magus. "And if you see Tom, tell him to get back to the castle by sunset for dinner, okay?"  
"I will." Avery headed off into the trees.  
From a short distance away, unseen by all, Tom watched the scene unfold, and sighed. Now the physical age of approximately twenty years, he had had a crush on the Princess for a long time. But she had married the Magus--unofficially, of course, since there weren't any priests around--back when he was just a child, and now...well, he cared for them both deeply and couldn't bear to think of hurting either of them. It was just...he wished things could have been different, somehow...  
The young man shouldered his fishing pole and went back to the river.

The moment they were sufficiently out of sight and sound of the others, Puck decided that enough had been enough. He stretched, and kept on stretching, breaking apart the flimsy wood of the small cage easily. Avery's jaw dropped in astonishment as, within seconds, his pet white squirrel transformed itself into a short white-haired man, with a bandaged cut on his left arm. Well, probably a person--pointy-eared, but close enough. Avery had grown up seeing only three other people, so he didn't have much basis for comparison as to what was "normal" for a human or not.  
"Who are you?" he yelled, backing up several paces. "What did you do with my squirrel?"  
"Look, kid, I'm not gonna hurt you." said Puck, holding out his hands to show he came in peace. "And as for your squirrel...there never was one. It was me."  
"Amazing." The boy blinked, then looked up at Puck with shining-eyed admiration. "Can you teach ME how do to that?"  
_You? Specifically? I probably could._ thought Puck. _But it would only work here on Avalon, wear you out terribly, and last but not least, I'm just...not going to._ "I'm afraid not," he semi-lied, "It's something only my kind can do. Your parents taught you about us, I assume? The Third Race? Children of Oberon, all that?"  
Avery nodded. "Yes. They said that when they first came here, there were only three of you...Children of Oberon here, three women who look almost the same..."  
Puck nodded. "That would be the Wyrd Sisters."  
"They wouldn't let my parents land because they were carrying the Grimorum, and the...sisters said that only Avalon's own magics could be here. But then my father turned them into birds and chased them away with his staff!" The boy grinned mischeviously--it was obvious this part of the tale was his favourite. "But they still had to leave the book. My father was really sad...until one day, when Tom, who was a kid like me back then, fell out of a tree and my dad used his knowledge of herbs to heal him. That made him realise he was useful after all so then he felt brave enough to tell my mother he loved her." The kid stuck out his tongue at this. Like all young boys everywhere, it seemed he had a very low tolerance for "mushy stuff" in a story.  
"This is all very interesting," Puck interrupted, "but the point is, I'm another...being like them, like the Wyrd Sisters, and we're just born with powers that humans can never have. I'm sorry, but I can't teach you how to change into a squirrel."  
The boy seemed disappointed.  
Puck suddenly had an idea--why not take the kid along? _If I'm right,_ he mused, _once we fix whatever the problem is with Avalon's magic, time-travel will go back to normal--which means these alternate realities will no longer be accessible. So...unless I take this kid with me to the normal time-line...nobody, not even the most powerful of my kind, will ever be able to see him again. And ya know, I just kinda like the idea of thumbing my nose at the Rules of time itself._ He grinned.  
"I can't teach you how to turn into a squirrel..but I can show you something truly amazing!" said Puck in a sprightly tone, causing Avery to look up again, "I am about to go on a great journey--we're going to go back in TIME!, and see the castle where your parents grew up, back on Earth. Won't that be fun?"  
"Travelling through time?" Avery was wide-eyed. "Is that even possible?"  
"Yes, it is," said Puck, bending down to look at the kid on his own level--although he didn't have to bend very far. "But you've got to promise me something. You've got to promise me that when we get there, you will be quiet, stay out of sight, and don't do ANYthing unless I tell you. You might mess up history otherwise, and that would be bad. Very, very bad."  
"How bad?" Avery didn't much like being told to stay quiet and not move around, so he wanted details as to why such an unfair restriction was being placed on him--by someone who wasn't even a parent, too.  
"You might accidentally wipe yourself and your mother and father straight out of existence--make it as if they'd never been born." explained Puck. Actually, history was more or less immutable, as various tests with the Phoenix Gate had proven--yet here he was, in an alternate history, and according to all the theories these things weren't supposed to exist...  
Avery gulped and went even paler than he already was. "I...I'll be good. I promise." he said solemnly.  
"One more thing." At this, Puck took hold of the child's shoulders and looked him straight in the face. "When we get done time-travelling, you might see two people who look a lot like your mother and father, only much older. You absolutely must NOT tell them who you are, or act like you recognise them. Because, you see...they're not really your parents. They are from...a place where things went differently, and you were never born. In this other time, the Magus never told Katherine that he loved her, and Tom won her love instead. If your...alternate father found out who you were, it would only make him feel even more. So please, don't say anything when you see them."  
Avery didn't quite understand all of this, but he did know that he didn't want to make his parents unhappy. "Er....all right, I guess. I won't say anything."  
Puck looked the boy in the eye again, then, seeing only truthfulness in the grey depths, stood up and raised his hands into the air to chant a teleportation spell--this time, one that was meant to take him to Xanatos directly, rather than just trying to go to a certain time-period.  
This time, he got it right.

David Xanatos looked around the castle with a grin, clapping his hands together and rubbing them with anticipation. It looked so like the castle that was now part of his skyscraper, and yet unlike. For one thing, it was fascinating to see it whole and alive, with so many people in it...people such as the chambermaid who was coming down the corridor right now and was about to see him! Xanatos quickly ducked into an alcove and hoped she would didn't have any duties in this particular corridor right now. Fortunately for him, the maid continued on by and was soon out of sight, humming a little tune the whole while. He stepped back out into the corridor--more cautiously, this time.  
"The Phoenix Gate may be able to take you anywhere--but it seems it can't dress you for the occasion," he muttered to himself, holding the talisman up so that it caught the light. He had palmed it from Puck's blazer pocket while the fay was distracted during that conversation on Avalon earlier. Xanatos didn't know about the restriction that the Gate had to be given willingly to work for its owner, but perhaps the Gate considered everybody who had travelled to Avalon to be part of the same "group" and was therefore interchangeable between them until the trip was over--perhaps this was just another side-effect of the way Avalon's magic was now warped. Whatever it was, Xanatos intended to use it to his advantage.  
"He won't need it for a while--not as much as I do, anyway," muttered David, looking around, trying to figure out exactly where he was. It was so strange to be in a place that he thought of as his, yet at this point, wasn't. "Where would they keep them, I wonder...?"  
He continued to explore the castle, and at one point, came across the empty bed-chamber of some minor noble who was evidently out carousing that night. He searched through the man's closet and came up with a tunic, hose, tights, cloak, and boots that weren't too bad, fashion-wise...unfortunately, not everybody was as tall as David Xanatos, especially back in the middle ages, so the clothes were rather an awkward fit. Still, it was better than nothing, and as long as he kept the cloak closed he looked fairly normal. _It helps me blend in around here better than an Armani suit, at least,_ thought the businessman to himself.  
Just then, he caught sight of a narrow spiral staircase leading upwards...a dusty, neglected staircase that seemed somehow forbidding. _Aha!_ he thought. _This looks promising..._  
Suddenly, a young page-boy walked out of an intersecting hallway and straight into Xanatos, spilling the bowl of water he was carrying all over the billionaire. The boy went sprawling, the man was merely knocked backwards a few steps. "Oof!" said Xanatos, shaking his head.  
The boy started apologising, seeming terrified that this great noble would punish him for such an impudent blunder. "I'm sorry, sir, really terribly sorry sir!" babbled the boy, standing up and bowing as long as he could. "It was an accident, sir!"  
"Quite all right," smiled Xanatos, turning on the charm. He looked at the boy--a small one, about nine or ten years old, with light brown hair in a ponytail and rather delicate features. "I'm not angry. What's that you've got there?" He pointed to the small white squirrel the boy was carrying.  
"Er, that's, er, that's Lady Knox's pet," said the boy, nervously, still backing away. "I was taking it to the castle herbalist to get its paw healed." Indeed, the squirrel had a tiny bandage around its left front leg. "Shall I fetch a towel to dry you off, sir?"  
"No," said Xanatos, who wanted to have a look up that staircase--but not when anybody else was around. "That's quite all right. You go help the Lady's pet--I'm sure she'll be grateful to you."  
The boy tugged his forelock and bowed again. "Thank you, sir!" And he ran off around the corner.  
"Charming lad," muttered Xanatos, and headed up the stairs.

"Rather overdoing it, wouldn't you say?" said Puck, as he and Avery stood in a corridor in one of Castle Wyvern's upper floors. The boy had been recostumed--by magic, of course--into a passable page-boy outfit, and Puck looked more or less like himself except his hair had been turned golden-blonde, his ears smaller and rounded, and his eyes less slanty. The fay wore the green, brown-trimmed robes of an Earth Mage, because he might need to use his magic in public while they were here and wanted a disguise that would give him a realistic excuse to do so. He also walked with a tall wooden staff, carved all over with what appeared to be arcane runes. (In reality it was just a stick of wood--but it wouldn't do for the humans to think he was casting spells without any proper wizardly apparatus.) "I mean, really, all that 'Oh, no, great sir!' and even tugging your forelock." The fay rolled his eyes. "Come on."  
"You told me to stay in character..." Avery pointed out.  
"Yeah, but it seems you've got a lot to learn about acting, kid." He stopped and considered something for a moment. "Then again, considering the way you were raised..."  
"What happens now?" asked Avery, fascinated. "Do we follow that man you told me about, to see what he does in the magic library?"  
"No need," Puck waved his hands as if to brush that idea aside. "That water you spilled on him--great job, there, by the way, it really did look like an accident--was no ordinary water. I cast a spell on it, so that as long as it is on him, I can see and hear everything he does. So, we can find out what he's doing without danger of being seen ourselves. Let's go find an empty room where we won't be found for a while, and watch."

By the time he reached the top of the stairs, David Xanatos was very glad indeed that he kept himself in as good shape as he did. Most people would be panting and sweating something fierce by the time they made it to the top of this thing--David himself was still short of breath, as it was. _Man, how high up AM I, by now?_ he wondered. _I must be in one of the towers. Well, nothing for it but to enter the room and see..._ He pushed on the heavy oaken door. To his relief, it swung open with a creak and the businessman entered the room.  
It was a surprisingly large room, with a stone floor adorned with colourful woven rugs, tapestries on the walls, and some simple yet functional furniture--a wooden table with matching chairs, a few cushioned armchairs and it was...somehow familiar. David stopped with a jolt as he realised where he had seen this room before--it was the room in the tower where he had been talking with Fox and the others before leaving on this journey! Only, it had something his tower room didn't--rather, many somethings. Books. Hundreds of books, on shelves all along the walls. Xanatos's stared in amazement at the number--in this day and age, what was in this small room represented great wealth and effort indeed. It looked as if finding what he wanted would take a bit longer than he thought...  
"Excuse me, sir?" came a quiet voice, and Xanatos looked up, startled, to discover that the library had not been as empty as he had expected-- hoped, actually. A slender, pale young man with strikingly sharp features and waist-length, silver-white hair came striding towards him, white robes flying out behind him as he moved. Xanatos guessed that the man must have been sitting in one of the chairs that was turned away from the door when the businessman first came in, and that was why he hadn't noticed him at first. "I'm afraid you must have taken a wrong turn--you're not supposed to be in here. Only those who are skilled in the mystic arts may enter this library."  
Xanatos studied the man while he concocted a response. Upon closer inspection, he realised he knew this person--it was the one who had been introduced to him as "The Magus", who had teleported them inside the castle back at Avalon. _But his hair is white even back at THIS age,_ he noticed, somewhat surprised. _What with the odd colouring, the "elvish" face, and the magic talent, I almost wonder if he's entirely...?_ "I am a wizard," he lied quickly. "An apprentice, I mean. I was sent here by my master to fetch a book for him."  
"What, the Archmage?" The Magus looked at Xanatos suspiciously. "He has no apprentice, other than I. And I graduated from his tutelage a few years ago."  
"No, no, a different wizard," said Xanatos, trying to sidle past the man and into the room so he could look more closely at those fascinating shelves full of old books. Old, already--even though they were in the year 994 A.D. "One from very far away, across the water." Might as well throw in an explanation for the accent, too, while he was at it.  
The Magus looked askance at Xanatos's ill-fitting, wrinkled finery. _Must be a spoiled lordling who decided to dabble in the occult merely for something to do. Hmph. People like that just make me so..._ "No offense, sir, but aren't you a little...old to be an apprentice? The study of magic is very difficult, and is best started in childhood."  
"Well, I wanted to be a knight, but it turns out my father's name wasn't influential enough to get me reccommended to the king, so I decided to switch over to studying magic instead," shrugged Xanatos, still trying to get past the young wizard. "Better late than never, eh?"  
The Magus was still staring at him with unnerving intensity. "What is your father's name, anyway, my lord?" he asked, looking sideways at the tall American. "I've never seen you around here before, nor yet heard anyone who speaks with a dialect like yours. From whence do you hail?"  
Xanatos rolled his eyes. _Oh, boy. He's NOT going to let me through anytime soon, is he? Technically I do have all the time in the world, but I am still losing patience with this._ "Look, great wizard...may I shake your hand?" Xanatos held out a hand, and, a bit confused, the Magus took it. "I would be honoured if you would teach me, sir," he continued, squeezing the young wizard's hand. As he did so, the little needle filled with knock-out drops he had put between two of his fingers pressed into the Magus's hand and the wizard fell over unconscious.  
_I knew those little knicknacks Dr. Sevarius worked up for me would come in handy sometime_ thought David, who routinely carried various odds and ends, never knowing when they might become useful. "Sorry about that," he said, stepping carefully over the unconscious young man. "But you'll recover, and I really do need to look around here without being watched." Staring around with satisfaction, Xanatos entered the library. All around him were books of and about magic, herb lore, legends, ancient history...surely, one of them would have what he needed.


	5. Besieged

**"Spellbound"**

A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!) 

Rating: G. Spoilers for up through "The Gathering" 

Chapter Five: Besieged 

"What's wrong?" Avery tugged at Puck's sleeve, a bit worried at the expression that had suddenly come over the disguised elf's face. Puck motioned him to be quiet and concentrated, listening. He was trying to keep track of what David Xanatos was doing upstairs, but there was also a great clamour of voices in the lower corridors of the castle, far below. It was not yet detectable by ordinary human hearing, but was coming closer...  
A female voice. "What is it? What's going on?"  
"The Vikings are attacking, your Highness! During daylight!" A male voice, unknown.  
The same voice again, now recognisable as Princess Katherine. "What? Sound the alarms! Lower the portcullises! Hurry!"  
_Sweet Apollo on a flaming chariot--why did Xanatos have to pick TODAY of all days in 994 AD to drop by for tea and biscuits?!_ "We'd better get out of here," he said, taking hold of the boy's arm and starting to steer him down the corridor. "Now."  
"But--but your friend--"  
Puck shook his head. "If I know David Xanatos, he always has at least three or four alternate plans in his mind at all times. He'll be fine. Come on."  
"I..." And suddenly, to Puck's amazement, Avery tore himself away from the fay's grip and careened madly up the stairs to the tower library. "I'll only be a minute!" a sing-song voice came wafting down the stairwell.  
"WHAT the--?! What are you doing? This castle is under attack by the Vikings; the whole place will be on fire in a few moments! Get BACK here!"  
A few moments later, the boy reappeared, his arms full of books--books of magic. Puck noted with relief that the most powerful of all, the Grimorum Arcanorum, was not among them, but still raised an eyebrow at the boy.  
"I'm not changing history," said Avery defensively. "They were going to be burned by the invaders. One way or the other they'll be gone from this castle forever, so does it matter how they go?" Then he looked down, sadly, and said, in a much softer tone, "Besides...my father would have wanted me to have them..."  
Puck gave the boy a frank, appraising look. "You are catching on to this time-travel business a little too quickly for my liking, kid. But--"  
He heard the voices again, coming closer this time. He couldn't tell if it was friend or foe and at this point, he didn't have much time left to find out. And speaking of time, he also didn't have enough energy left to do another major time-and-space travel spell at the moment, either. He briefly considered floating out one of the windows, but that would make them a lovely target for any archers the Vikings might have among them--and a magic shield that made arrows just bounce right off would garner them a good sight more attention than he wanted. And to float them both, be shielded, and invisible would, again, take more energy than he currently had. So it looked like they'd have to get out the old-fashioned way--down the stairs.  
"Come on! This way!" He pulled off his cloak, made it into a satchel around the books with a gesture, grabbed hold of the boy's hand in one of his own and the satchel in the other, and rushed off down the corridor. The voices were coming nearer and he could almost swear he smelled smoke...

Xanatos looked up, startled, as he thought he heard something. Isolated as he was up in this very high room, the sounds of battle were distant as of yet, but...  
Just to be certain, he sped up the process looking for the spell he wanted. It would by necessity be a very powerful one, only available to the most highly-trained of wizards. That let out most of the minor books of spells on the shelves, and of course he could eliminate the simple herb-lore and potion-mastery tomes. Which left only...  
His eyes strayed to a large, heavy, ancient leather-bound book sitting upon an ornately carved wooden pedestal. _Of course. It HAD to be that one, all along. Was there ever any doubt?_ Smiling slightly, Xanatos walked over to the Grimorum Arcanorum and started to skim quickly through the pages. _I'm lucky this thing doesn't have any of those spells of warding on it to prevent non-wizards from reading it...like, spells that make you go blind, or mad, or zap you with lightning if you try to open it, or...hey, wait, why doesn't it have anything like that, anyway? Oh, well. I'm not about to complain..._ He went on, faster now, knowing that he only had one chance to find what he wanted. If he tried it again, certain people would be on to him ahead of time and he would never get away with this.  
"Oooohhh...." There was a miserable groan from somewhere behind one of the bookshelves, and the Magus staggered dizzily to his feet. "How did I get on the floor?" He looked around, muzzy. "I was studying from the Grimorum, and...." An awful thought occurred to him. "The Grimorum! If the Vikings take over the castle, it will be burned along with everything else they deem worthless! Where is it? I've got to take it with me!"  
Hearing the voice wend its way through the shelves, Xanatos quickened his search even more. "Aha! This is it!" he muttered to himself. Or at least, it sure looked like "it". No time to test it now--he ripped the page out of the book, turned a few pages over to hide the ripped one, and whispered the incantation for the Phoenix Gate...just before the Magus rounded the tall bookshelf he was behind.  
"What? What was that strange flash of green light...?" wondered the young wizard to himself, looking about in confusion. The voices were getting closer, however, so he pushed such trival concerns aside--as well as some vague memory about a tall man in badly-fitting clothes--clutched the book to his chest, and started running down the stairs as fast as he could.  
There was a very good reason why the Grimorum didn't have any spells of warding about itself, and the Magus knew what it was, as did every wizard who had ever been allowed to study from its pages. The wizards who compiled it--long, long ago...had simply never assumed that anybody not ready for this book WOULD mess with it. They just assumed that rumours and superstition would be enough to keep those without the gift away. They knew a lot about magic, those wizards. A whole lot.  
It's a pity they didn't know more about human nature.

"Come on! Everybody out! We are invaded!" yelled Princess Katherine, herding people past her with frantic gestures. She saw it as her duty to make sure her people were safe. "Let's go! Everybody ou--" She broke off abruptly as a small figure careened straight into her, coming down the stairs that led to one of the towers. They both went sprawling.  
"I'm sorry, your highness!" gasped the boy. He was dressed as a page-boy, but she knew all the castle's pages and his face was not among them...yet he still seemed familiar, somehow. Behind him stood a small man with long, golden hair and green robes--obviously a wizard but even more obviously not her Magus. "I got lost! I didn't mean to bump into you!"  
"That's all right, child," said Katherine, bending over to help the boy to his feet. She tried to speak in as soothing a tone as possible, while also looking back and forth over each shoulder for any sign of marauding barbarian hordes. Then she stood up and looked the strange wizard in the eye, speaking in a much more businesslike tone. "Who are you?"  
"My name is...Robin, Robin Goodfellow," said the man, who had not expected to have to introduce himself during this brief sojourn and therefore had not bothered to think of a good pseudonym. "I'm the Royal Magus of a kingdom far away. The boy is my nephew. I was visiting here to exchange knowledge with your court wizard, when--"  
_He never mentioned any of this to ME,_ thought Katherine, who knew how passionate the Magus was about his craft and how much the idea of being able to talk to a colleague from foreign lands would delight him, but she pushed the two strangers towards the back door anyway. "Never mind any of that now, we have to get out! The castle is under siege! Go!"  
Gratefully accepting her directions, the two ran for the exit.  
Katherine then bounded up the stairs to one of the towers, to see if anybody else was still in the castle. To her surprise, the Captain of the Guard leaned out of one of the side corridors. _Why is he still here? He should be out leading our troops!_ "Captain!" she called out. "The Vikings! We are attacked!"  
The Captain grasped hold of her wrist and leaned forward into her face, a most unpleasant expression stealing across his own rough-hewn features. "I'm afraid it is far worse than that, your highness..."

The immediate outside of the castle was bedlam--the frightened castle-folk trying to get away, the Viking soldiers snapping them up, siege engines, fires, chunks of fallen battlements, people running, screaming, accidentally striking their own comrades in the confusion, and smoke, smoke everywhere. The smoke from the numerous fires the Vikings had set almost turned the day black as night, and Puck was uncomfortably reminded of the way he last left Avalon--in the present day.  
Nobody made it out of the castle without being grabbed--except a certain wizard from out of town who knew how to alter the possibility of people seeing him and his companion, and who stayed in the shadows of overhanging balconies and the thickest patches of smoke whenever possible. Coughing and sputtering, the two managed to make it to a reasonably safe distance beyond the castle walls, and climbed a tree to get out of the way. _Wish I had thought to cast an air-filter spell ahead of time..._ thought Puck ruefully, as he choked right along with the human boy.  
"I remember this," said the boy in a melancholy tone, after a few moments of relative silence between the two as they attempted to get their breath back. "That is, I remember my parents telling me about it. My...real parents..."  
_At this point, they ARE still your real parents,_ thought Puck. _They don't become the other ones until that accident on Avalon...doesn't happen._ Instead of pointing that out, however, he decided that now was the time to bring up a subject he'd been wondering about ever since he met the kid. "About your parents...um...I assume your father taught you how to use magic?"  
"Of course," said Avery, looking sideways at Puck as if he thought the fay had suddenly lost his wits. "Who else?"  
"The reason I ask is...the way you cast spells is not normal, for humans," Puck went on. "Human spells use Latin words, spellbooks, staves, jewelry...something to use as a conduit...you don't just concentrate and have it happen! And you certainly don't say it in rhymes, in the vernacular. You're pure human, or as close to it as makes no odds--how did you DO that?"  
"Well..." The boy swung his skinny legs absentmindedly as they sat on the tree branch, far above the chaos and, for the moment, safe--"My father had this theory that the magic of Avalon itself could be harnessed directly--it would be a great strain, but if done carefully and only in small amounts at at time, it could be safe. The rhymes...I guess he just figured that would work better since it's the kind of magic that Avalon is used to, right? So, he trained me to use my magic that way."  
"His own son?!" said Puck, startled, although he supposed he shouldn't be startled at ANYthing mortals did anymore, by now. "At such a young age? But humans aren't meant to channel magic directly through their bodies--you might hurt yourself!"  
Avery shook his head. "It's not like that. My father really does--did love me, it's just that it was so important to him to pass his knowledge of magic on to someone else, that's all. He trained me in tiny little steps, very small spells to begin with, only one or two a day...and then, over time, I guess...I got used to it. I was able to do more and more without wearing out."  
_"Got used to it" to the point where, if he kept up with his studies, he might be at the power level of a child Fay by the time he reached adulthood!_ thought Puck, rather stunned. _Well, not like Oberon as a child--like one of the weaker members of our race. Still, this is NOT something the Sisters would be happy to hear about. Thankfully, it'll only work for him while he's on Avalon..._  
He was about to say something out loud to break the uncomfortable silence, when suddenly the child gasped in horror and clutched Puck's arm--so hard the fay could feel the small nails digging through the thick green cotton of the sleeve. "Ohh..!" cried the boy, his voice an anguished whisper.  
Far away, but still visible, at the top of the battlements...the sihouette of a Viking raised his mace to one of the stone Gargoyles. The mace came down...  
"NOOO!" The boy buried his face in Puck's robe, sobbing. "How can they do that? How can ANYbody do that? They can't! They just CAN'T! It's too..." He broke down crying, his words lost in sobs. At a loss for what to do and and frankly feeling rather sickened himself, Puck awkwardly stroked the boy's long hair, trying to emulate what he'd seen human parents do with their children at times like this. He never thought he'd find himself taking care of a mortal child, especially a strange one with magic powers... "I know," he whispered, softly. "I know. It's horrible. But it has to be this way."  
"WHY?!" The boy looked up, eyes red from crying but fierce, almost frightening, with hatred and anger. "WHY does it have to happen? Some of the Gargoyles are still whole and you have all these great magical powers...USE them! DO something!"  
Puck was tempted, had been tempted long before. He had been tempted when he saw these events--the first time, so to speak--from far away, in Raven's reflecting pond in Canada. But he knew he couldn't--he mustn't. Not only was history immutable, but he KNEW what would eventually become of this, he had been a large part of the future that came from these events, and he knew that to try to solve this problem, here and now, would cause quite a few others later on.  
But it was tempting. So very, very tempting. A few words, a small flick of his wrist, and the entire Viking army would go up in flames. Flames, like the ones licking around the castle, like the ones burning up the poor unfortunate servants stuck down in the basement who would be missed in the chaos and not taken prisoner like the other Scotsmen, like the ones...emanating from his hands. Puck snapped back to reality and, his eyes changing from glowing green back to their usual dark colour, forced the power back under control. Not now. Now was not the time.  
Unfortunately.  
Seeing that the fay wasn't about to leap into action, Avery decided to take matters into his own hands. "If YOU won't save the remaining Gargoyles," he yelled, standing up on the branch, although a bit unsteadily, "Then I will!" He snatched the "magical" staff Puck had been using as a prop and leaned on it, making a dramatic gesture with his left hand. "Flames of red, both far and near--burn down the Vikings, make them disappear!"  
A miniature fireball shot from his palm, drifted about five feet towards the castle walls, then fell to the ground and set a small patch of grass ablaze. Nobody noticed. The boy turned grey, his knees buckled, and Puck barely caught him before he slumped out of the tree.  
"Whoah, boy, what do you think you're doing? You can't do magic like that except on Avalon! Human magic works differently--it takes little bits of energy from everything in nature around the spellcaster and channels it into the spell! You can't take pure magic directly out of the ground on Earth--there's not enough of it!"  
Avery blinked, conscious enough to hear what Puck was saying but, for a moment, too weak to answer. "But...you can do it..."  
"My power comes from Avalon, not Earth", said Puck, leaping down from the tree-branch with the boy in his arms (floating the satchel with the books behind them) and falling softly to the ground in slow-motion. Now was the time to leave, he felt. The fires were getting uncomfortably close to the tree they had been sitting in, and besides, he just didn't want to be around this site of death and sadness any longer. _At least, not until a thousand years later, when it will be an overgrown ruin and I will be the ever-efficient businessman, Owen Burnett. Ah, Owen. I miss him, in his way. Feels like a long time since I last saw him._ "I am connected to Avalon, being a Child of Oberon, just as you are connected to Earth, since you're human. But no time for that now--we've got to get out of here!"  
A moment later, a little patch of emptiness that people just didn't feel like looking at...somehow seemed even emptier.

The once pristine-white snowdrifts were now a trampled, wasted plain, as the fight against the unrelenting Frost Giants wore on. Broken weapons of all sizes littered the ground, trees had been knocked over or crushed, and blood of both red and green had been shed during the conflict. High overhead, an eagle wheeled, screeching as if it were somehow mocking the efforts of the tiny dots below. But the most terrifying thing of all was the...hole. A rip in reality glowed ominously above the blackened sky of Avalon, looking as if some impossibly strong giant had pulled the air apart with its bare hands, the ragged edges pulsating with a dull, evil green light. Nothing more came from it, though--the Frost Giants had all come out the second it had opened.  
It still made one feel uneasy to look at, however, because of its very...wrongness, so Elisa Maza made herself stop looking at it, and concentrated on the task at hand. She brushed the back of her fur-robed forearm across her forehead, breathing heavilly...strange as it seemed, even in this cold of a climate, she had worked up a sweat fighting these Frost Giants. Then again, that wasn't hard to believe when one considered how much effort it took to harm something of their size. A human-sized person had to run (or glide) all over the place in order to do enough damage so that the giant would even notice it; whereas the giants had to do only one heavy blow of their weapons, and if you were in the wrong place, you were out of luck. The giants were slow, but that was about the only disadvantage they had that Elisa could see. If they didn't find some way to stop them soon...  
There came a cry from above and to her left, and Angela was knocked out of the air by a glancing blow from one of the giant's hands. Nobody else was near close enough, so Elisa rushed over as quickly as she could, cursing the way the snow slowed down movement every step of the way. She managed to catch the falling Gargoyle girl--barely. The two of them went down in an undignified heap in the snowdrits.  
"Thank you," said Angela, sincerely, looking closely for the first time at this strange human from far away. "You saved my life. From what Katherine, Tom, and the Magus tell me...people of the outside world usually don't have much use for us Gargoyles."  
"Yeah, well, you could say..." here Elisa's eyes drifted over to Goliath, and she hid a little smile, "...I've got a different perspective."  
A huge wooden club loomed over them. Angela grabbed the human's arm and pulled her out of the way just in time. Elisa sat up, again, shaking her head dizzily. "Man, we have GOT to find a better way to fight these guys, soon..."  
Something caught her eye--twisted, thorny black shapes against the white snow, in the background. _Wait, I think I have an idea...well, the beginnings of one anyway._ "FOLLOW ME!" Elisa yelled, hoping her voice would be heard by the others. "Head for those trees over there! We'll have them at a disadvantage in more closed quarters!" _I hope..._ She didn't want to kill the giants, if necessary. As a cop, her job sometimes included recapturing escaped criminals...not executing them. Sure, they had been judged "criminals" in a case centuries before she was even born, but it still seemed like a dispute of justice to her, and that, she was used to. _When in doubt, go with what you know._  
The others acted as if they heard her, except for a couple of the Gargoyle hatchlings, but Gabriel veered over in their direction and said something to them that was lost in the howling wind and intermittent thunder. Gradually, the whole group began to head for the trees, and the giants followed.  
"Elisa!" called Goliath, as he glided over the human woman's head. "What exactly are you planning? They can just step on the trees; the forest won't hold them for long!"  
"I know!" she yelled, "but I was thinking maybe we could entangle their feet and make them fall, or something!"  
"Let us take care of that, human!" sneered Demona, coming up to glide alongside Goliath for a moment. "We can get there faster."  
If Demona was hoping for an outraged reaction to her derogatory use of the word "human", she didn't get it. Elisa merely shrugged and turned to the Magus, Katherine, and Tom, who were struggling along through the snowdrifts behind her, fighting the whole way. "That sound okay to you?"  
"Anythin' ye think will help, m'lady!" called back Tom. The other two just nodded their agreement. The Magus, especially, looked rather out of breath--it was obvious that using his magic so much was taking a lot out of him, even if the environment was currently "supercharged".  
The Gargoyles, led by Goliath and Demona, sped on to the forest, the strong--if erratic--wind currents taking them there much more swiftly, since they didn't have to worry about slogging through the thick snow on the ground. Elisa could vaguely see them weaving branches together or something, if she shielded her eyes against the constant biting, blinding wind, and she almost started to dare to hope. _It might work,_ she told herself, looking over her shoulder for giants every few steps. _There's a chance..._ She had almost reached the relative safety of the trees when--  
"What is THAT?!" came a horrified cry from the Princess, and Elisa turned around to see what she was talking about. Something else had come through the...rip...two somethings. One was a wolf, fur as white as the snow they were struggling through, but its body the size of a moderate skyscraper!--and the other was a snake, also white, so long she couldn't even see where it ended.  
Elisa gulped, as she realised there was no way their small band, even armed with iron weapons, could possibly fight monsters of this size. Sure, there was all that stuff about how the pure of heart could always win against any odds if they tried their best, but who was she kidding? Certainly not herself. She was a cop--a New York cop at that; she didn't have much time for fairy-tales. _Even when they're real,_ she thought dryly, as she watched Fenrir and Jormungand rush forward, slavering and drooling. _Who am I kidding; we're not only outnumbered, we're also tired by now and the Magus is about to collapse. The traps the Gargoyles are making in the forest won't trap these guys, they're too big! If we had more people or more power or if we didn't have this snow slowing us down, then maybe, but as it is..._  
Elisa was so fascinated--in a car-wreck kind of way--by the scene behind her, she neglected to look closely enough at the path ahead and plunged straight through a thin crust of snow, landing in a deep pit. Desperately, she tried to climb out, but it was no use--the snow was too powdery, came apart under her hands. It offered no handholds. She could get out if she really worked at it but that would take time, and the lead giant's huge feet looked way too close... "HELP!"  
The other humans rushed forward to help her, and Goliath looked up his work in the forest, torn between finishing the traps and going to her rescue. Of course, he soon stood up and went charging through the trees after her. "ELISA!!" Demona just rolled her eyes and went on making her trap.  
"WE'RE COMING!" yelled Katherine, but she and the others were still too far away. Elisa redoubled her efforts to get out of the hole--and fell in even further, the snow caving in from the sides. She was blind, exhausted, the snow covered face...she started to black out. _Not NOW,_ she thought, struggling to stay awake, bare fingers clawing away at the snow without any direction. _Please, not now..._  
"Are you all right, my lovely little Valkyrie?" called a voice, muffled, from above the snow, and before Elisa could stop to wonder who would be calling her such a thing, a hand reached in to pull her out. Gratefully (but still somewhat suspicious) she took the hand and was soon back on her feet, on relatively solid ground. When she could see again, she noticed that it was quiet...strangely quiet. The reason soon presented itself--the giants and the monsters had all stopped and were just standing where they were, looking about with somewhat confused expressions--well, the giants had confused expressions. It was hard to tell on the wolf and the snake.  
"I am so sorry about that, we certainly didn't mean to harm anybody," said the person who had pulled her out. Her rescuer was a tall, slender man with sharp features, high cheekbones and a thick, wild shock of flaming red hair with streaks of orange and yellow in it. He wore a red velvet tunic with elaborate gold edgings and might have passed for a human with somewhat odd fashion sense--if not for the eerily blank silver-blue eyes and the pointed ears.  
Elisa wondered briefly where he had come from--she hadn't seen any normal-sized people among the giants, but the man went on. "It's just that we were so eager to escape, you see. We've been cooped up in there for so long. Empty pocket dimensions can get so very dull, you know. Of course, that's the idea, prison wouldn't be much of a punishment if it were enjoyable, would it?" He smiled...such a reasonable, charming smile that Elisa found herself instinctively fighting to keep from smiling back, without quite knowing why. "Oh, but where are my manners?" He bowed graciously. "Please, allow me to introduce myself..."

Xanatos reappeared on the shores of Avalon, although not the Avalon he had just left--it would never do to attempt such a complex spell in the twisted, warped-magic conditions that prevailed on the island as it was in the present time. _But if this works, I'm sure I can do something about that,_ he thought confidently. No, this was earlier--still night but the sky was starting to lighten in the east, hinting that the sun would be rising soon. And yes, there was still a sun at this point. He could tell, even without being sensitive to the magic of the island--the air just felt clearer, the atmosphere more calm, the colours were normal...this was Avalon as it should be. Avalon, the source of the magic of an entire race, the most powerful place in the world, whose children were immortal.  
And soon, if all went the way he wanted, Xanatos would have some of that power for himself.  
Standing up straight and facing out into the sea, the tall businessman pulled the page he had taken from the Grimorum out of his pocket, carefully smoothed it, and ran his eyes over the spell one more time. Finally, he would have his dream. _If this works..._ he thought nervously, but banished the thought. David Xanatos was never nervous. About anything. He had confidence in himself and went full-speed ahead at all times, no matter what--that was how he had become so successful. Clearing his throat, he began to speak the incantation.  
"Maga insula, tam candida magnificaque,  
Da mihi tui adiuvantem manum,  
Exple me cum immortale flamma,  
Et coagmenta nos, unum idemque!"  
At first he felt nothing, and thought the wizard who wrote down that spell must not have known what he was talking about. After all, the notes on the page said that this was only a theoretical spell, it had never been used because it was deemed too dangerous. Supposedly--so the legend went--if the island found the person lacking, the "immortal flame" would destroy them, burn them up from the inside, rather than giving them the powers of an immortal. One way or another, David would know whether the spell worked or not...quite soon. And quite definitely.  
But nothing seemed to be happening.  
He considered saying the spell again, thinking that perhaps he had mispronounced a word or two, when suddenly he felt a strange tingling--almost as if he were underwater, and delicate tendrils from some exotic sea creature were reaching forward, curiously, tenatively, to brush against him, see what he was, then pulling back, while other tendrils brushed him from another side. The air seemed thickened somehow, as if time itself were slowed down, adding to the impression of being underwater. _Avalon is seeing what it thinks of me,_ he thought, trying his best not to show any sign of fear. _I sure hope I pass the test..._  
Then time and the air snapped back to normal and the "tendrils" went away...to be replaced by an overwhelming sensation. Heat, such powerful heat, it felt as if he was burning up inside. Xanatos would have screamed if he could remember how, but the flames were blurring his mind, making it hard to think. They surged through him, the pain excruciating. He felt as if he were being torn into tiny pieces...

A few moments later, Puck and Avery teleported in to see nothing but an empty beach, the water lapping at the two indentations in the sand where a pair of designer leather dress shoes had once stood.  
"He's already gone." murmured the fay, looking at the thickening mists. "We're too late..."


	6. Dawn

**"Spellbound"**

A "Gargoyles" fanfic by Rydia Erdrick Landale (aka Captain Chaotica!!) 

Rating: G. Spoilers for up through "The Gathering" 

Chapter Six: Dawn 

Puck and Avery teleported back to Avalon of the present day just in time to witness an interesting conversation between the humans and Gargoyles and...somebody Puck hadn't seen in ages. He motioned the boy back behind the trees and they watched, silently.  
A thin, wiry redheaded man stood in the middle of the snowdrifts, the bright, warm colours of his clothing and hair clashing with the cold winter landscape. "Please, lovely ladies," he turned around to include Elisa, Katherine, Demona, Angela, and the other female Gargoyles in his statement, "I would like to resolve this conflict without further violence if at all possible, and I'm sure you, being reasonable people, would like to as well. Is there anyone here of authority that I may speak to?" He knew Oberon couldn't be there; otherwise he would have been tossed straight back into the prison already. A mortal, however, he could deal with...  
"I...well, I used to be a Princess, back in the mortal world..." said Katherine, stepping forward a few paces, though everyone could tell she was very nervous. The Magus raised a hand as if to put it on her shoulder, move her behind himself, protect her somehow--but sadly dropped his hand and stayed where he was. He was barely able to stand on his own two feet, after all--what use would he be to anyone else?  
"Excellent," said the red-haired fay, turning to face her. "Your Highness, allow me to explain our side of the grievance. But first, I think perhaps...a more appropriate setting might be in order?"  
He snapped his fingers, and a long, narrow stone building appeared out of nowhere. The escaped god gestured grandly towards it.  
Goliath stepped forward to check it out, holding up an arm to warn the others to stay back. Suspiciously, the large Gargoyle crept around the doorway...to be met by the sight of nothing more threatening than rows of long, low, heavy wooden benches on either side of the room. Several stone-and-mud structures, about 5 feet tall each, were in the middle of the building, a merry fire blazing in each one. The floor was mere packed earth, but smooth and solid. He came back out and motioned to the others. "It's all right...I think."  
"Of course it's all right, what, do you think I don't know how to make a simple longhouse?" said the fay, affronted. "This is the type of building that the people who used to worship me used for serious discussions of policy; I thought it appropriate, considering. Please, come in, sit down."  
Elisa came in after Goliath, clutching her fur cape around her neck. "Primitive...but I'll take it," she decided, going quickly over to one of the fires and holding her hands above it. The Wyrd Sisters spell protected them from actual harm due to the sub-zero cold, but it still wasn't exactly pleasant out there. The others filed in and everybody found a place either on one of the benches, or around a firepit. When they were all settled again, the redheaded fay floated up towards the ceiling in the middle of the longhouse, where they could all see him, and spoke.  
"My name is Loki, once worshipped by the Norsemen as the God of Fire and, er...Chaos." The name meant nothing to the three humans of medieval Scotland or the Gargoyle hatchlings, but Elisa drew in a breath and Goliath--who had spent many nights in the library--nodded as if something he had been suspecting had been confirmed. "Now, I won't pretend that I am perfect. I am known as the Trickster God, but well, you know, it just gets so very BORING after a while, when you're immortal. You can't blame a god for wanting to have a little fun every now and then, can you...?"  
_It's not as if we can really say anything; we've got another "trickster" as one of our allies._ thought Elisa. _Hey...where is Puck, anyway?_  
"Yes, I did some bad things," Loki went on, addressing the group, "but I don't think that anything is bad enough to lock somebody away forever over. Especially when they live as long as we of the Third Race do--I couldn't even hope for death to release me from the emptiness. And these giants! They did nothing except be large and fierce of appearance. Sure, the legend says that someday they will help destroy the world, but is it fair to lock people up for things they haven't even done yet?"  
"And it's not as if my husband is the only one to blame in these matters," came a voice from the doorway. The mortals watched in amazement as one of the Frost Giants--who was only visible as part of a leg, from here--shrank down into a tall, angular humanoid woman with white skin, long blue-white hair, completely clear eyes, and those pointed ears that seemed to be a somewhat common trait among the Fair Folk. "For all his so-called wisdom, Odin can be a cruel, harsh, impulsive man. I have often thought that he might as well have kept his eye and stayed away from that Well, because it didn't seem to do him any good. He was afraid of the prophecy that said Loki was to destroy the world someday...then did everything possible to provoke him! For one thing, he kidnapped me in the middle of the night and forced me to watch as my children were taken away."  
"Children?" said Angela, startled.  
"Why, them, of course," said Loki, gesturing towards the wall, which temporarily became transparent so that they could all see through it. "Fenrir the wolf and little Jormungand, the serpent. Ah, how they've grown..."  
As the mortals were all boggling at his use of the word "little", Angrboda continued, "I ask you, is it right to take children away from their mother, imprison them, just because they LOOK different?"  
"NO!" yelled Demona, striding forward with her hands clenched into fists. "Of course not! We Gargoyles have been hunted down all throughout time for that very reason!"  
The frost giantess turned towards her in surprise, a little smile stealing across her face as she realised she had an unexpected ally in this seemingly human female. Loki floated down to stand next to her. "I do not know much of your kind," she said, turning towards Demona, "It seems that although Gargoyles can withstand the temperatures of winter in Scandinavia, they do not like it much. But surely, if you have ever been a mother yourself..."  
Loki put a hand on his first wife's shoulder and shook his head, sadly. "Well, like I said, I did cause a fair amount of problems," said Loki, walking over to stand by his wife again. "I admit I tricked a blind man into murdering his own brother--that was despicable, I realise that now. And I caused much pain and embarrassment for others, especially Thor, who was once my best friend. I know all that. I realised it was wrong at the time but did it anyway. I have killed, I have lied, I have stolen, I have ruined the lives of both mortals and fair folk alike, and for what?--my own selfish desire for amusement. But Oberon tossed us into that empty, blank pocket of nothingness and then just forgot about us, for centuries...surely we've paid our debt by now?"  
Katherine found her heart going out to the strange couple, for some reason. "It sounds as if your crimes were terrible," she said, slowly, trying to work things out as she went along, "but anybody who would do such things to children--even children such as these..." her eyes flickered quickly to the Midgard Serpent and Fenrir "...is not a worthy ruler, and therefore should not be allowed to make such decisions. So if it were up to me..."  
"All we want is to go free," said Loki, spreading his hands and addressing the whole group. "We'll settle the Frost Giants at the North Pole--they'll like it better there than in warmer climates anyway--and then Angrboda and I will disguise ourselves as mortals and live in some little town in Norway. We won't bother anybody. I promise. I'm done with all that Ragnarok nonsense--why would I want to destroy the world? It's far too interesting. At the time, I was mad with rage, blinded with the lust for vengeance..." Here Demona looked starled, as if something had suddenly hit home. "...but several centuries of nothingness is enough time to cool the blood of anybody, even a god. We just want to be free again."  
"Well, according to my country's laws, you have served far more than the maximum time in prison even the worst criminals are sentenced to--those that aren't executed, that is." said Elisa. "But how can we know you'll keep your word?"  
"You can't," said a voice from the trees behind her, and Puck stepped out, accompanied by a small boy the others had never seen before. "And I should know. He onced scammed me out of a million drachmas, when he talked me into betting on King Priam during the Trojan War!" He looked around the longhouse with an air of disdain. "Ah...straight out of 'Better Homes and Battleaxes'. Get with the program, Loki--this is so last millenium."  
"Puck, my old friend, I haven't seen you in ages!" said Loki, beaming with delight. "Why, this is a surprise. Here I've barely broken out of Nifleheim and I meet one of my best friends already. How are things in the real world, anyway?"  
"Different." Puck grinned. "You would not BELIEVE what those mortals have been up to. They have this type of magic called 'technology', and you are going to flip when you see how much it's changed things. It's not the world you left at all, anymore."  
The red-haired god's eyes sparkled at the thought. "Oh, I can't wait to see it..."  
"But Loki," continued Puck, looking his fellow trickster in the eye, "You know full well that the main reason we're not putting you back into Nifleheim...is because we can't. The Wyrd Sisters and I are the only other members of our race currently on this island, and only Oberon himself can cast a spell of that power. But I can tell the Wyrd Sisters about you in a flash, and they'd tell Oberon the second they see him. Trying to destroy the world is about the biggest crime there is...so give me one good reason why I shouldn't tell them. A real reason."  
Loki looked at him with a lopsided smile, as if he was about to make a wisecrack, then thought better of it and said, simply, "Because you value freedom as much as I do."  
Silence.  
"You can go, old friend," said Puck, clapping the fire-god on the shoulder. "You knew I wouldn't really turn you in--I have no more love for authority than you do. Oberon is a stuffy old snot, and Odin...I never did like him. But you know what will happen if you are caught...I can't--and won't--protect you from Oberon's wrath. You must be very careful not to use your magic around any others of our kind, or where mortals can notice it. The Gathering is coming soon, and you know what that means. If Odin refuses to go and Oberon comes looking for him, His High and Mighty Blueness might sense something else in the area..."  
"We understand," said Angrboda, smiling at the petite, white-haired fay. "Thank you."  
"But what about me?" called Avery, and everybody turned as one to look at the young boy, who had been nearly unnoticed up to this point. "I don't have anywhere to go, either! My parents are..." here his gaze strayed to the Magus and Katherine, both much older than the way he knew them but still unmistakably the same people, "...gone, and I have nowhere to turn to..."  
"Ah, yes," said Puck, "Allow me to introduce my travelling companion, Avery...er..."  
"Belden." said the boy.  
"Yes. He originally was to have died in the siege of Castle Wyvern; I thought it would not hurt history any to take him with me, since he no longer had a part to play." said Puck, shrugging. He did not give any explanation for why he had gone back in time in the middle of a battle, and the others did not ask him for one, probably because they knew he was not likely to answer. "He is now an orphan of time, and has nowhere else to go..."  
"Let me take him." said Loki, unexpectedly.  
Puck looked up at the Norse trickster in amazement. "You? You've got to be kidding me! You don't exactly have the world's best reputation, ya know!"  
"But he has always been a good father to his children--at least, for as long as he was allowed to," said Angrboda. "You've heard the stories, you know that's true."  
"He was a MOTHER to one of them!" giggled Puck, holding his sides as he went into a gale of laughter. "Oh, man, I swear, Loki, I can't believe you actually did that..."  
"Like you never got a little too into the part while shapeshifted, hmm?" sniffed the fire-god. "But it's true...I may not have been that great to the other gods, but I've never been a bad father. Come on. I'm not supposed to be here, the boy isn't supposed to be here...it's a match made in...well, somewhere."  
Puck turned to the boy. "What do you think of all this?"  
Avery frowned, and took hold of the fay's purple chiton. "I want to stay with you...you're the only person I know in this future world."  
Puck shook his head and gently removed the boy's fingers from the fabric. "Sorry, kid. I've got my hands full with things already--I wouldn't be able to raise a human child in the middle of everything else."  
"You could stay with us," said Katherine, wistfully.  
The boy looked at her. _I wish I could say yes,_ he thought. _But you're not my mother, not really, no matter how much you look like her...and I can never, ever let you know who I am!_ "I'm afraid not, Your Highness," he said, bowing low. "Avalon is said to be beautiful--well, most of the time--but I can't stay here all my life. I belong to the real world--no matter what time period it is."  
"And you couldn't find a better travel-guide than me!" said Loki, bending down to put his arm around the boy's shoulder. "I've been everywhere, I've seen everything...I'm a social type of god who knows everybody and can get along with just about anyone. I have been called many things, but never boring. Stick with me, kid, and your life will never be dull."  
Avery glanced up at Puck, catching his eye. "Well...if you say this man is your friend..." Puck nodded, although he didn't add that Loki was a "friend" who always drove him crazy. "Then...I guess I'll go...oh! My books!" He walked over to Puck and took the satchel from him, straining under the weight.  
"Books?" said Angrboda. "Times really have changed--most boys your age aren't interested in reading. Of course, most of the human boys I used to know were Vikings..."  
"They're..." Loki reached a hand out towards the satchel, closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, and a mischevious smile spread slowly across his face. "Magic! Ha! Brilliant, Puck! No magic is allowed here except Avalon's own, so you disguise the books of human spells by wrapping them up in a cloak made by your magic!"  
The Magus looked up at this, startled. "Spellbooks? Really?"  
"I saved them from the library, because they were going to be burned if I didn't..." Avery explained.  
"A clever trick," said Loki, winking at Puck. "Almost worthy of me. But now, I do think we should be going..." He waved his hands, and where he and his wife the frost-giantess had once stood, were a pair of perfectly ordinary humans--one a red-headed, blue-eyed man, the other a pale, blonde woman with grey eyes. Their features were almost the same as before, except for the ears being rounded. "Or rather, Lukas and Annika Brandt, kindly uncle and aunt to little orphan Avery Belden, should be going. Wouldn't do to let the natives know about us, of course..."  
He gathered the other two near himself and raised his hands above his head to begin the teleportation spell, when suddenly there was a great thunderclap, bigger than all the others in the unending storm that had become Avalon's sky, accompanied by a flash of blinding green light. A tall, broad-shouldered figure strode out of it, hands on hips, head held high. He had appeared in the middle of one of the firepits, but didn't seem to notice or care.  
"No need to waste your own power on that," said a familiar voice. "Allow me."  
It was David Xanatos.

Puck was the first to recover. He strode forward and looked his employer in the eye--not at his expression, but at the man's actual eyes. They were the same deep brown they had always been, but if you knew what to look for... "You did it, didn't you." he said, flatly. It was not a question. "Even knowing how dangerous it was, the fact that it is forbidden, you went ahead and did it."  
Xanatos shrugged, not apologetic at all. "I wanted to be immortal, and it seemed like your people have a pretty good thing going. So..."  
"What? What did he do?" Demona wanted to know.  
"Yes, will somebody please tell us what is going on around here?" asked Angela. The other Gargoyles nodded.  
"If I'm correct, he cast some sort of spell to turn him into one of my--er, our--" he included Loki, Angrboda, and the other Frost Giants "--people, the Children of Oberon. But such magic is forbidden! Fay can be born only of other fay, they can't be made!"  
"Oh, so in other words, he did to himself what you said you couldn't do to me," sneered Demona. "I knew you were lying about that."  
Puck shook his head. "I can't do that kind of spell, I don't have the power," he insisted. "But mortal magic is different--the power comes from nature all around the wizard rather than from within, and so, as long as a conduit of some sort is present, the human--or gargoyle--wizard can cast spells that take far more energy than they actually have, if they're careful. This spell would have come from the Grimorum Arcanorum, I do believe."  
"Yes, it did," admitted Xanatos. "And what of it? I've finally got my dream! Now that I know the spell works, all I need to do is bring Fox back here with me and--"  
"Sir," said Puck, unconsciously reverting to not only the speech patterns of his alter-ego, but his appearance as well. The others gasped, and belatedly, he realised that--possibly due to all the stress he'd been under lately--he had just given away his secret identity. _Oh, well, that's not important right now, we have MUCH worse things to worry about._ "May I please see the spell? The exact wording may be important."  
Xanatos looked at him suspiciously, but handed the page over. "I want that back when you're done."  
Owen read through the incantation, translating into English as he went. "Magic Isle...immortal flame...bind us together, one and the same?" His voice rose from a mutter to a sharp questioning tone as he hit the end part, and he handed the spell back to Xanatos. "If I'm right...according to these words, you have not only bound yourself to Avalon...but also bound the island to itself!" He took hold of his employer's shoulders and shook the man while shouting into his face. "Don't you get it? All this chaos, this trouble--the broken spells, the lost powers, the darkness, the seal to Nifleheim being opened, the fact that Avalon is cut off from the world...all of this was caused by YOU!"  
Xanatos blinked in shock, then pulled himself away from his assistant and straightened out his ill-fitting medieval finery, a calm, calculating look upon his face. "I can live with it. I can live with it forever, in fact. And if you want to leave my service, fine. I won't need the help of an immortal anymore, now that I am one myself. Of course, I already know that my powers will still work on Earth. I teleported there and tried out a little spell before I came here."  
"They would," said Owen, "because you are tied directly to the island...at the expense of the entire rest of our race! Please, reconsider."  
Xanatos just shook his head. "I've searched for a way to achieve immortality for a very long time, and now that I finally have it, I'm not giving it up. That's final."  
"Please, sir," pleaded Owen. "I know you. I know you better than you know yourself, perhaps. And the David Xanatos I know would NOT doom an entire race to extinction. The David Xanatos I know is ambitious, yes, power-hungry, yes, ruthless, sure...but he is not evil. Not truly evil. You have always teetered on the edge of absolute darkness--in fact, that's what makes you so interesting--but you've never fallen in. Please, sir. Don't slip now."  
Xanatos said nothing.  
"Besides," here Owen changed back into Puck and pointed to the bandaged wound on his arm, which was still stained green with his blood, "we're not so invulnerable as you might think." He paused, and went on, with a wry half-smile. "And one can only see the same sitcom reruns so many times..."  
Xanatos's eyes strayed to the wound on the fay's arm. _He could have healed that instantly with his magic at any time,_ he thought. _He left it there on purpose just to make the point, didn't he?_ He looked Puck in the eye. The fay's unblinking expression betrayed nothing, but Xanatos knew he had guessed correctly.  
The businessman sighed. "You're right..." He looked around at the dark, twisted, horrible island, and sighed again. "You're right. I do want immortality, but not at this price." He smiled wryly. "I must be getting soft and sentimental in my old age..."  
"Thank you," said Puck, and smiled. "I knew you wouldn't let us down."  
"I guess I'll just have to find some other way to become immortal!" Xanatos grinned and waggled his eyebrows. "Don't think I've given up on that, because I haven't. But first things first--how do I reverse this? I don't have the counterspell..."  
"You don't need it," explained Puck. "At the moment you're one of us, and our magic doesn't require specific, memorised words. All you need to do is concentrate on the result you want, think of a way to describe it that rhymes, and it should work."  
"Why the rhymes?" Elisa wondered aloud.  
Loki answered her. "Nobody knows. Not even Oberon knows. It's one of those things that...just is."  
"Can I do just one more spell, first, you know, by myself...while I still can?" pleaded Xanatos. Puck nodded his assent. The tall businessman concentrated and, with a POP!, Loki, Angrboda, Avery, the two monsters, and all the Frost Giants disappeared. "I hope I did that right...I was trying to send them to somewhere isolated in Norway."  
"Well, if you didn't, Loki or Angrboda can correct it in time...I hope." said Puck. "And now, sir...?"  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Xanatos sighed, took a deep breath, then walked outside and before they had a chance to blink, everybody else was outside too, on the beach. The only way to tell it was a beach was the fact that the unending snow gave way to a huge expanse of ice, of course, but it was a beach. "I never did that well in Creative Writing in English class, but here goes nothing..." He stopped and thought for a moment, then chanted: "Magic isle, as I stand on your shore, make me now as I was before!"  
Everyone held their breath, waiting to see what would happen. They were not to be disappointed.  
Xanatos felt the power that sparkled through his blood like wildfire suddenly drain away and die, leaving in its place a great sense of loss. He had never needed the power before he had it, but after having it for only a short time, he felt empty without it. It was as if he had never truly been alive, his eyes had never truly been open, before he cast that spell...and now it was all slipping away. The veils were closing back down over his eyes, colours were dimming, sounds were becoming muffled...everything seemed somehow less real now. He knew he would never be the same again.  
Meanwhile, the changes happening to the landscape were far more spectacular. The thunder and lightning slowed and stopped, the colours of the clouds turned to more normal greys instead of the sickly greens and yellows they had been before. The trees straightened and became healthy, the far-off horizon was no longer bent and didn't hurt the mind to look at anymore. Then the clouds began to pull back, revealing a pale sky. They pulled back farther and farther, then went down towards the ground, changed from fog to ethereal white mist, and continued to pull back across the land until they were over the water, around the edges of the island, not on it. Meanwhile, the rip in the sky pulled itself together, the ragged edges melting into each other as if there had never been any hole there at all.  
Then, finally, the sky started shading from grey to light blue as the sun continued its slow creep over the horizon, interrupted what seemed like hours ago but was really only seconds. The Gargoyles turned to stone as usual, as the Wyrd Sisters' temporary spell was finished. All the colours returned, the air felt fresh and clean, and the snow began to melt, dripping off the trees. There was a sense that time had stopped holding its breath, that things were moving forward once more. The dead, withered leaves on the trees started to revive, to become green again. The bitterness began to seep out of the air, to be replaced by a balmy spring morning breeze.  
Avalon was back.

Queen Titania leapt up from the edge of the desk, startled, as the aching cold, the dizzy, ennervated feeling disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. She stood up and changed back into her human alter-ego, Anastasia Renard, when suddenly, a great cacophany started up inside her head, nearly deafening.  
_What's happening? What was that?_  
_It was horrible! I was so helpless!_  
_So alone...the silence..._  
_Please, Queen, help us!_  
She put her hands to her temples and rubbed them, wincing, as thousands of frantic mental calls came in, from all over the globe. It was obvious that her subjects had been trying to contact each other all this time, and the messages just now got through. _Okay, enough..._ she told them. _Calm down. One at a time. QUIET!_  
As the chaos inside her head finally subsided, she went on. _It's all right,_ she told them. _I don't know quite what happened either, but the magic is back now. Be at peace, my children. Everything is as it should be._  
"And none too soon," she said aloud, looking at the clock. It was almost the end of her shift, and the other employees would certainly be wondering what she had been doing in her office for so many hours, especially in the middle of a huge project. Anastasia saved the game, turned the game system off and was about to put it back in the desk...when suddenly, on an impulse, she slipped it into one of the large pockets of her white labcoat intead. After all, her adventuring party had almost made it to the final battle of "Fantasy Quest XII"--it would be a shame to get that far and not see how it ended.

"I knew you could do it, sir," said Owen, who had replaced Puck once again. He wasn't bothering with any special effects, since this was not the time to worry about impressing anybody. "Now, the spell...please?"  
Xanatos looked reluctant. Owen just looked at him pleadingly, and the sight of such heartfelt emotion in those normally near-expressionless eyes unnerved Xanatos so much he had to look away. "Oh, all right..." He dug the spell back out of his pocket and handed it to his assistant.  
"Thank you, sir." Owen held the page with the spell out in the palm of his hand, flat, and in a moment, the spell caught on fire and burned to ash. He blew lightly on the ash, and it swirled up into a miniature whirlwind and blew away. "Now, I think it's time to go..."  
"Not so fast." came a chorus of voices behind them, and the group whirled around to see the Wyrd Sisters floating above the slush and mud towards them, an aura glowing around the three. "We know what you have just done, trickster. You deliberately aided known criminals to escape." said Luna.  
"Oberon will NOT be pleased," continued Phoebe.  
"You are in grave trouble, servant." finished Selene.  
The fay in human guise cringed. "But I couldn't force them back into Nifleheim myself! You know that, Sisters!" he protested.  
"And it's wrong to keep somebody in prison for that long, anyway!" protested Elisa, stepping forward.  
"Or to hurt them just because they look different!" said Demona, standing forward as well. The two women jumped, startled, as they realised that for a moment they had actually been agreeing on something, and both took sudden, strong interests in the landscape around them.  
_Nice points, but you're not helping, ladies..._ thought Owen. The Sisters appeared to not even notice the words of two mere mortals, and addressed him again as if they had never been interrupted.  
"But, Oberon will also be unhappy with us, if he finds out about this." said Luna.  
"He will wonder how we allowed such a thing to happen to his island while we were guarding it." continued Phoebe.  
"Therefore, for our sakes, not yours...we will refrain from telling him. It would be best if you left, however. Now."  
"Just one more moment, ladies," said Xanatos. "Please". He looked at the beautiful green hills, hills that he knew he would probably never see again, then turned and faced the misty shore. _Gone, forever gone..._ he thought, sadly. _I'll never be truly awake, never truly alive, again. I'll never be the same..._ Even the memory of it was already starting to fade.  
"You all right, sir?" said Owen, gently.  
"Yes," Xanatos did a gesture that his assistant could have sworn meant he was wiping away a tear, if it was anybody else, and slowly turned around. "I'm ready to go now."  
The Wyrd Sisters looked on impassively at all of this, and then raised their hands above their heads and began to chant in unison.  
"Visitors whom to Avalon would roam,  
Return thee now to thy own fair homes,  
Mortals, too, who dwell on Avalon fair,  
Listen to what we now declare:  
Thou shalt not remember what thou hast seen--  
To thee it shall ever remain a dream."  
It seemed as if the mists of Avalon themselves were creeping up over the group from New York City, making everything blurrier and blurrier, harder to see, sounds faded, getting fainter and fainter, there was a dizzying sensation and then-- 

"How did I get here?" wondered Elisa, as she sat up on a hard, cold stone floor. It took her a moment to orient herself, but after looking around a bit, she determined that she was in some room in what had been Castle Wyvern, now part of Xanatos's building. She had the worst headache but, oddly, did not feel sore at all, as might be expected from somebody who had fallen unconscious on a stone floor. _Guess that means I wasn't out very long, then. Well, that's something anyway._  
She stood up, brushed herself off, and realised that also sprawled on the floor were Xanatos, Owen, Goliath and...Demona?! As an odd, incongruous little detail, she also noticed that a wooden table in the room was laden down with the remains of a veritable feast. The detective was about to wonder aloud about all this when her digital watch beeped. She glanced at it. "Ack! 9:40 pm...I'm supposed to be on duty at the station right now! I hope Matt isn't too mad about having to fill in for me..."  
She was about to head down the stairs, when Goliath stood up and graciously offered his arm to her. "Please, allow me," he smiled. "I can get you there faster."  
Elisa smiled, but shook her head. "I'm afraid it's a bit too cold of a night for that." she said. "I'll just drive as usual. Besides...my car's parked in the lot here."  
Demona just ignored them. "Well, I still want to know what I'm doing here, Xanatos," she said to the human businessman, suspiciously, as she stood up and brushed off her rags. "I know I came here for some reason, but I can't remember what it is..."  
"I assure you, Ms. Demona, I have no more idea why we were all unconscious than you do." said Owen, straightening his tie and looking as composed as if he had just returned from a coffee break. Demona glared at him, willing him to crack, but the blonde looked right back at her, his expression betraying absolutely nothing. With a muttered snarl of frustration, she leapt out the window as well.  
"Unlike our blue friend there, I don't just feel that something odd happened...I know it, Owen," said Xanatos softly after she left. He brushed off his Armani suit as he stood up. "I have these strange images in my head...something about a land with no sun...three women who look almost exactly alike...giants...and a gargoyle turning into a human?"  
"I have no idea what you're talking about, sir." said Owen, bending down to pick up some stray bits of food that had fallen on the floor. "Most likely it was just a dream. A vivid one, but a dream." He had the same images in his own mind, although in his case they were stronger, more detailed--and he also had the feeling that this was one mystery best left unsolved. "We'll never find out what it means--if anything--so I suggest you don't dwell on it, sir."  
The eyes of the two men met for a moment, and suddenly, somehow, they had the eerie sensation that...they knew what it was like to be in the other one's place. Owen had been a mortal--for real, not just in human guise--and Xanatos had been an immortal, with powers beyond anything he had ever imagined. But that was silly. Things like that didn't just happen and then leave no trace behind...did they?  
"Good night, Owen."  
"Good night, sir."

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**Disclaimers/Acknowledgements:**  
Story, cheesy poetry, and illustrations (not available at the Fanfiction . net version) (C) November/December 2004, by Tiffany J. Knox. Latin translation of Xanatos's spell by: Supertails. Thanks to "The Gargoyles Fan Site" for the words to the incantations for the Phoenix Gate and Titania's Mirror. "Gargoyles" and all characters and situations thereof are the property of Disney, Buena Vista television, and anybody else associated with them. The characters of Avery Belden, Darlene the secretary, David Bradley in Research, and Elizondo the lab tech belong to me. Loki, Angrboda, Fenrir and Jormungand/the Midgard Serpent belong to Norse mythology, but their portrayal in this story is from me, too, as are Loki and Angrboda's human alter-egos, Lukas and Annika Brandt. All rights reserved. Any resemblance of any character in this story to anybody living, dead, or undead (if you're not sure which you are, ASK!) was mostly coincidental...except of course for those "Gargoyles" characters who rather resemble their voice-actors. Heh. Offer not void in the state of Calisota, check your local listings, your own mileage may vary. May contain nuts.


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